Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

Jingle Bell Kids Activity

December 19, 2023November 23, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Christmas is just around the corner, and we’ve got some fun ideas in store for you! This Jingle Bell Kid’s Activity can be a jingle bell game or a Fine Motor Christmas activity that kids will not forget! Use an egg carton and jingle bells kids can manipulate for a color learning and fine motor activity.

We’ve done our share of Christmas play activities and this Jingle Bell Sorting activity is just one way to play and learn with a Christmas theme. We’re joining a bunch of other bloggers in a busy bag series where each month, we’ll bring you a busy bag activity to keep the kids busy and occupied (and learning!) In-hand manipulation activities are a great way to boost fine motor skills needed for tasks like managing clothing fasteners, using a pencil when writing, manipulating items like coins or beads, and more.

This jingle bell activity would be fun to incorporate into a Christmas sensory bin, too.

Jingle Bells for kids are a fun Christmas fine motor activity with an egg carton.

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Jingle Bell Kids Activity

This jungle bell kids activity is a Christmas busy bag that helps children build fine motor skills, as well as other learning components in a game format.

We’ve done quite a few “busy” time of activities on this blog. These are the activities that kids can do on their own or with a little set up and explanation. They are kept busy and learning, creating, or exploring on their own. Busy bag activities are perfect for times when caregivers need to focus on other children, dinner preparation, or while waiting. Modern day busy activities might be smart phone apps for some kids, as they “busy themselves” as they wait in a restaurant or doctor’s office. A busy bag activity that is easy to set up might be something as simple as manipulating small items, or sorting sugar packets by color.

Jingle Bell Activity for Kids

Independent learning is important to a child’s development. When a child is learning on their own, they are able to come up with questions and ideas independently. They develop problem solving skills, and exploring during the process of the activity. When a child has an adult participating in an activity with them, they often times focus on the end product or goal rather than the process of the task. Children become aware of their own strengths and weaknesses during independent play and can gain a sense of satisfaction when they do a task on their own. Busy bags are great for independent learning!

Color Sorting with Jingle Bells

Paint the egg carton to match the jingle bells kids will use to work on color sorting, counting, and fine motor skills.

We started with a recycled egg carton. Technically, this isn’t a busy BAG since we made our activity in an egg carton…but it is a busy activity, and I love that it can fold up and stow away with the sorting material inside the carton. The cardboard type was needed for this activity, in order to get the paint to “stick”. I painted the sections of the egg carton in four colors. I LOVE these poster paints for their bold colors.

Paint the egg carton for a jingle bell sorting activity.

Little Sister (age 3) helped me paint the sections, and we let them dry overnight…because when Little Sister helps, a lot of paint is used.

Jingle bell activity to work on fine motor skills at Christmas.

The next day, we were ready for our jingle bell sorting activity. We used jingle bells that we received from our friends at www.craftprojectideas.com (Thanks so much!!) I poured the bells into the top section of the egg carton, and showed Little Sister how to sort them.

Kids can work on fine motor skills with this Jingle bell activity.

This is such a great activity for color identification, fine motor skills, scanning, hand-eye coordination, and early math.

This jingle bell activity is a toddler activity for Christmas because they can work on fine motor skills and color sorting with toddlers.

The colors are so bright and the jingle of the bells gives a great sensory input to this activity. Little Sister sorted and sorted while I changed diapers, swept the floor, and watched her sort.

Kids can sort jingle bells in this Christmas fine motor activity.

Christmas jingle bells for kids to work on fine motor skills.

Preschool jingle bell activity to work on fine motor skills, color sorting, counting.

One of the cousins came over one day and these two three year olds had fun sorting together.
I showed them how to extend the play by counting the number of bells in each section.

Count jingle bells with this Christmas fine motor activity for children.

I love this activity for it’s fine motor aspect, too. Managing the jingle bells as they picked them up and sorted them into the sections works on many skills. You can encourage your child to pick up a few bells at a time and pocket them into the palm of the hand as they sort the bells one at a time.

Picking up several bells works on in-hand manipulation, specifically the skill of translation. Moving the bell from finger tips to palm as they “squirrel away” bells into their palm is a difficult task for many kids. This is a task needed in order to manage coins or other small items.

This jingle bell activity works on fine motor skills like in hand manipulation.

Placing the bells into the sections requires the child to use in-hand manipulation to move the bells from the palm to the finger tips. This is also the skill of translation and is needed for pushing coins into a piggy bank or vending machine, or managing small items like marbles.

Translation is a complex task requiring strength and dexterity of the intrinsic muscles of the hand. It’s fun to watch these skills develop in an activity like this one!

In hand manipulation is a fine motor skill that kids can refine with this jingle bell activity for children.

We’ll be saving our painted egg carton for long after the holidays to sort lots of different items: crafting pom poms, paper clips, paper, dyed pumpkin seeds, and more! Here is a big list of fine motor activities using craft pom poms.

With this activity and any other on our blog, please be sure to supervise your children when small items are involved. If your child is one who puts items into their mouth, you may want to hold off on this activity for a while. Use caution with this activity as it involves small parts.

Christmas Handwriting Activities

Writing out that Christmas wish list is a difficult task that brings out tears instead of holiday excitement. I’ve got a solution for your kiddo with handwriting difficulties: a packet of modified paper for all of the Christmas handwriting tasks that come up each year. Use this handwriting pack to help kids who struggle with handwriting to participate in holiday traditions while even working on and developing their handwriting skills!

Working on handwriting with kids this Christmas season? Grab your copy of the Christmas Modified Handwriting Packet. It’s got three types of adapted paper that kids can use to write letters to Santa, Thank You notes, holiday bucket lists and much more…all while working on handwriting skills in a motivating and fun way! Read more about the adapted Christmas Paper here.

Christmas modified paper for holiday handwriting for kids

Check out some more busy bag activities for the holiday season:

Christmas Busy Bags

Christmas Activities for Kids Printable Busy Bag

Christmas Counting Busy Bag

Decorate a Play Dough Christmas Tree Play Kit

Gingerbread Button Counting Busy Bag

Snowman Busy Bag

Reusable Christmas Sticker Busy Bag

Christmas Posting Busy Bag

Christmas Tree Busy Bag

Printable Mix and Match Christmas Puzzles

Christmas Chocolate Maker Busy Bag

Printable Q-tip Snowflakes

Candy Cane Stripe Counting

An Early Reader Christmas Busy Bag

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Disguise the Turkey Digital Activity

November 11, 2024November 18, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Disguise the Turkey free digital slide deck for teletherapy

This Disguise the Turkey digital activity is an interactive Thanksgiving activity that kids can use to as a disguise the turkey project for this year. In a year when teletherapy and distance learning is the new way, digital activities are the way to go. Recently, I shared a free turkey theme slide deck for virtual therapy sessions. It was a HUGE hit. One thing that readers asked for was an interactive portion on one of the slides. On that slide, you’ll find a turkey with clothing items that students can write about. Today, I’m sharing this free occupational therapy slide deck for a disguise the turkey project in 2020.

Another free slide deck you’ll love is this teaching gratitude therapy slide deck that targets fine and gross motor skills, mindfulness, and more.

Disguise the Turkey

So, what is disguise the turkey? This is a fun Thanksgiving activity that all of my kids have done each year in their elementary years. They typically come home with a turkey template and instructions to put on their thinking caps and use materials they find around the home to disguise the turkey, so that he can hide from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

Students are instructed to use materials in the home, recycled materials, paints, crayons, and other items to glue onto the turkey.

Disguise the turkey usually involves children turning their turkey pal into another character such as Santa Clause, an army guy, a cowboy, fairy, or any topic a child can imagine! One of my own kiddos even dressed his disguise a turkey project into a fidget spinner a few years back. Another of my kids turned their turkey into the Chick-Fil-A cow, and another disguised their turkey into a disco ball. The point is to think outside of the box and make a fun and creative project.

Normally, these disguised turkeys are hung in the school hallway or somewhere in the classroom for all to see the creative turkey fun.

This year is a little different, however.

To add some fun and creativity, I made this digital disguise the turkey slide deck.

Disguise the Turkey interactive slide deck is a free slide deck for teletherapy, digital learning, or virtual classrooms. Use this as a fun family activity based on the typical disguise the turkey projects for Thanksgiving.

Disguise the turkey project

Take the disguise the turkey project a bit further. After students move the interactive pieces onto the slide, they can work on other areas of learning and development so that this turkey project adds to the learning curriculum.

If you are feeling like many parents out there right now, children are spending way too much time on screens. There is a motivating factor and a need for screen-based activities during this time, however.

This disguise the turkey project includes an interactive slide deck to decorate the turkey with costumes, and a writing prompt to use in therapy or learning activities.

That’s why this disguise the turkey project hits the ball out of the park. It’s a fun activity for kids. They will be engaged in disguising their digital turkey with the movable slide pieces. And, if they’ve done a disguise the turkey project in years past, there is a bit of nostalgia that they might experience.

Disguise the Turkey Extension Ideas:

However, you can then extend this project in a way that works for the individual child’s needs in therapy, or in the classroom (or home classroom).

Ask students to write out the items that they used on their turkey project.
Ask students to write a story about their turkey.
Use the prompts on the next slide and they can name their turkey, and fill in the blank about why their turkey is safe in the disguise they designed.
Use this slide to work on sentence composure and creative writing.
Work on typing skills as students type into the interactive text boxes on the slide.
Work on handwriting. Kids can write their responses on paper. This is a fun writing prompt for kids and they can work on letter formation, line use, spacing, letter sizing, and legibility.

You can use this as parents, therapists, and educators to work on all aspects of creative writing, typing, or handwriting.

Free digital slide deck to disguise the turkey!

Free Digital Disguise the Turkey Activity

Enter your email address below to access this free Google slide deck. Enter your email address in the form below and you will get a PDF delivered to your inbox. Click the button and you will be prompted to make a copy onto your Google Drive. Then, use that slide deck to teach gratitude to kids using movement and activities. Have fun!

Need more Free Therapy Slide Decks?

You’ll love this Teaching Gratitude Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Turkey Theme Slide Deck.

Grab this Football Theme Slide Deck.

Kids are loving this Community Helpers Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Don’t forget to grab your copy of the Thanksgiving Fine Motor Kit! On Sale now.

Gratitude Activities

November 16, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Gratitude activities and specific ways to teach gratitude is an important part of child development. But gratitude can be a complex and abstract topic for kids. Sometimes, putting together a few hands-on activities can be a helpful way to show children how to express gratitude for the people, things, and places in their lives that they are thankful for. There’s more; Gratitude is an early social-emotional skill that fosters children’s social emotional learning as well as a core skill that relates to successes and relationship skills later in life. Use the gratitude ideas described here to help children build this essential soft skill while targeting motor development, making activities for gratitude development fun and functional.

Gratitude Activities

These gratitude games, activities, and hands-on play ideas help children foster this soft skill.

I’ve tried to pull together several activities and ideas that help children understand thankfulness and see that feeling in action through play and activities.

You’ll find book-related thankfulness activities, gratitude games, thankfulness crafts, and other gratefulness activities to teach gratitude to children and even adults.

You’ll find a teaching gratitude therapy slide deck that occupational therapists and other child professionals can use in teletherapy to teach this skill, while targeting other areas like fine motor skills, gross motor, mindfulness, and even handwriting.

There’s more to it, though. Helping children foster gratitude helps them later in life.

Gratitude Activities Foster Social Emotional Learning

I mentioned in the first paragraph, the significance of teaching gratitude to children. This soft skill is a powerful one to start early with toddlers and preschoolers. But, teaching the ability to be self-aware, and cognizant of one’s well-being, even in difficult times is a powerful instrument in fostering grit and resilience.

More so, teaching gratitude to children allows them to build essential roadmaps to social emotional learning and prepares them for successes later in their life.

Social and emotional skills are founded on self-awareness, emotions, and the connection between the emotions, thoughts, actions that we see in children. The ability for children to manage their behaviors, thoughts, and actions (or behaviors) rests in perspective, impulse control, and self-awareness.

When children can connect the dots between other people’s perspectives and having empathy for others, they are able to maintain and build relationships. And, when children are in that mindset of being mindful of others and how their own actions, thoughts, behaviors, and actions impact others, social emotional awareness takes place. That ability to make responsible decisions about their choices can flourish when a child is grateful for what the have and their ownership in any given situation.

Gratitude leads to self-awareness, perspective of others, kindness, and empathy.

For children, having and expressing gratitude helps them to recognize the tools they have already as a way to be resilient against obstacles and challenges. When kids are aware of the things they have, the special skills they posses, or people they have in their corner, they can use those things so they are empowered, and not overwhelmed.

These are big concepts and deep connections for children!

Many adults struggle with these very same concepts. But, to say that these ideas are too deep or advanced for children doesn’t mean that we can’t work on gratitude as a building block for social emotional awareness and development. Instead, we can provide gratitude activities that help children build and establish these skills.

Research tells us that positive emotions, including gratitude, promote happiness and flourishing, creating an upward spiral (^{Fredrickson, 2009, Seligman, 2011}). This upward spiral is a tool in a child (or adult’s) toolbox for learning, development, interaction with others, and day to day success.

Gratitude Activities for Children

So, how can we foster this appreciation for the world around us? Below, you’ll find gratitude activities and gratefulness activities to help children become genuinely more thankful for people, things, and their own self-awareness.

Discuss thankfulness- Talk with children about the things, people, situations, and skills they have available to them which are things to be thankful for. Expressing gratitude for the smallest gifts that we have in our lives, of any kind, helps children communicate and establish gratitude. Try this gratitude craft to help children count their blessings and to create a physical reminder of all that they have to be thankful for.

Model gratitude- Parents can express their gratitude and be a visible example to children so they can be thankful in any given situation, even when things seem difficult or challenging. Parental examples of thankfulness despite challenging situations is a powerful reinforcement that allows children to learn gratitude by “seeing” and “doing” as they learn to use the skills and “tools” they have available to them. In this way, kids learn in the moment and see gratitude in action. This can be shown in many ways:

Parents can tackle difficult situations with positivity.
By saying thank you to others, kids see an example of gratitude in action.
Say things like, “I’m so grateful for…”
Put a positive spin on difficult situations as an example of a positive mindset: “this is hard, but I am thankful I can…”

Express gratitude on a daily basis- Being consistent with thankfulness can help children learn this abstract concepts in very concrete ways. These gratitude printable worksheets and activities can be part of a daily gratitude exercise, as a family.

Incorporate books- This Bear Says Thanks activity helps children to see gratitude in action in a childhood book and then pair the book with a fine motor activity that allows them to count their blessings.

Make gratitude part of the home- Make a gratitude tree as a way to express family gratitude. The daily reminder will become part of the home and is a reminder of all the things in life that there are to be thankful for.

Teach gratitude- Helping kids to understand what gratitude means and looks like can involve the whole body. This teaching gratitude slide deck targets fine and gross motor skills, mindfulness, and even handwriting.

Journal gratitude- We know that writing down the things that we are thankful for promotes a better mindset and overall wellbeing. Keeping a daily journal with children can be a way wot foster the positive impact of daily gratitude. Ask children to write down just one or two things each day that they are thankful for. What would you add to that list for today?

The Impulse Control Journal is a child-friendly way to write down gratitude and to use that journaling to foster mindset and self-awareness through quick checklists where kids can write out their strengths, qualities, supports, and insights.

Fredrickson B.L. Crown; New York: 2009. Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace The Hidden Strength Of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, And Thrive. [Google Scholar]

Teaching Gratitude Slide Deck

October 26, 2022November 15, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

teaching gratitude free occupational therapy slide deck

Today, I have another occupational therapy teletherapy slide deck to share and it’s all about teaching gratitude, just in time for Thanksgiving. If you’ve been hanging around this site since about March of 2020, then you have probably seen quite a few teletherapy activities in the way of free slide decks. This one is perfect for helping kids understand gratitude and especially in hands-on, practical ways that they can learn gratitude and all that that means. Let me tell you about what all is in this free slide deck and then you can get your copy at the bottom of this blog post.

Plus, use these thankful turkey templates for hands-on activities.

Teaching Gratitude

When it comes to teaching gratitude, there is nothing like being immersed in a sense of thankfulness. This gratitude activity helps kids better define what they are thankful for so they can show and express gratitude for the things they are thankful for, both to themselves in the way they understand gratitude, and as an expression to others.

I created these slide decks to help kids identify exactly what it is that they are thankful for, and in a way that helps them use their whole body through gross motor activities, and through fine motor work, as well as handwriting and verbal communication.

In this thankfulness activity, I broke down gratitude into different activities that builds on areas they might be working on in occupational therapy interventions.

Related: Here is another gratitude activity for kids.

Teaching gratitude to children is fun with this gratitude mindfulness activity.

Teaching Gratitude with Mindfulness

The slide deck includes several activities, one of them being a warm-up activity that encourages mindfulness and deep breathing.

Children can use whole-body movements with big deep breaths in and deep breaths out as they pretend to place imaginary items into a basket. This is a fun way to incorporate deep breathing concepts of mindfulness along with gross motor actions, core strengthening and expanded lung capacity with gratitude as children imagine and think of the things they are thankful for.

Related: Here is a Thanksgiving mindfulness activity that you can pair with this slide deck.

Teach gratitude with a fine motor activity kids will love.

Teaching Gratitude with Fine Motor

The next slide in this free slide deck asks children to draw and cut out paper leaves. This is a nice teletherapy activity using only paper, a pencil, and scissors.

Children can draw, cut, and then curl the edges of their paper leaves, working on fine motor skills such as hand strength, bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, precision, and visual motor skills, as well.

Related: Here is a way to extend the activity and teach gratitude using the leaf craft.

Teaching kids to be grateful helps with writing it out. Use this gratitude writing activity for kids.

Teaching Gratitude with Handwriting

Children can then write out the things, people, and places that they have gratitude for. This action of writing down gratitude can be a way to make concepts real.

Adding in the handwriting piece makes this a great teletherapy activity for occupational therapy sessions.

Love this gratitude scavenger hunt as a gross motor activity to teach gratitude to kids.

Teaching Gratitude with Gross Motor

The next part of this free slide deck is a movement scavenger hunt. Children can go through the slides and find people, items, or things that they are thankful for, by moving around their home.

This is also a good way to work on visual perceptual skills such as visual attention, visual discrimination, and visual figure ground skills.

Want to get this free slide deck to teach gratitude?

Enter your email address in the form below and you will get a PDF delivered to your inbox. Click the button and you will be prompted to make a copy onto your Google Drive. Then, use that slide deck to teach gratitude to kids using movement and activities. Have fun!

Need more free therapy slide decks?

Here is a Turkey Theme Slide Deck.

Grab this Football Theme Slide Deck.

Kids are loving this Community Helpers Slide Deck.

Here is a slide deck for a Social Story for Wearing a Mask.

Here is a Space Theme Therapy Slide Deck.

Here is a Therapy Planning Interactive Slide Deck.

Here is a Back to School Writing Activity Slide Deck.

Here is an Alphabet Exercises Slide Deck.

Here is a Self-Awareness Activities Slide Deck.

Here is a Strait Line Letters Slide Deck.

Here is a “Scribble theme” Handwriting Slide Deck.

Teach Letters with an interactive Letter Formation Slide Deck.

Kindness Challenge

November 13, 2020November 13, 2020 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

I was reminded that November 11th is World Kindness Day. It seems that the world needs a lot of kindness at the moment! This 7 day kindness challenge is an old family challenge that I had on this website. Today, you’ll find a free family kindness challenge, with free printable challenge cards, and extra kindness ideas and activities that the whole family can use in random acts of kindness. It’s cool to be kind, right? Pass on kindness and challenge the whole family to spread kindness!

Kindness Challenge

Going through the routines and schedules of family, work, school, commitments, family obligations, and all that being part of a family entails…it is exhausting. For families of young children, there might be online learning, middle of the night wake-ups, diapers, sticky fingers, crusty faces, and the general mayhem of family life. For parents of older children, it’s dealing with online learning, technology, and the daily changes of 2020! Motherhood is a beautiful and messy job.

Between all that is happening in the world and life in general, there can be moments of gratitude, empathy, laughter, snuggles and peace. Then there are the big whiffs of baby head and soft skin mixed with love. (Every Mom knows that scent, right??) The good hugely crushes the exhaustion and we keep going.

7 Day Kindness Challenge

When the outside world’s dangers and unpredictability nears the shelter of our homes, we can grow weary just when we need our strength…to smile through the difficulties. It is SO good to hear of positive work being done in the world. There are people who strive for kindness, bravely inspiring grace in the world. Our kids’ world needs the good.

We’ve got something very exciting to share today. Going on the theme of being the good in the world and inspiring others with kindness and graciousness, we’ve got a challenge for you. A challenge for your family. Make that a Challenge. (Capitalized makes it sound more “official”, right??) This is a Challenge for your family to take part in over 7 days, with kid-friendly kind acts and activities that will inspire good in you and good in others. Gratitude, joy, giving, kindness, awareness, patience, and a positive outlook can inspire others to be the good too. This is a short and easy challenge. One week of ideas that can be fit into your family’s schedules and needs. Get ready to inspire and be inspired.

But first, you’ll want to hear how we were inspired to inspire others!

7 Day Challenge for inspiring good and change. Take this challenge, loaded with easy activities that families and kids can do together for one week and be an inspiration of good, gratitude, and kindness by blessing and inspiring others.

To believe there is good in the world is to have ownership in that thought process and to be a part of the good. That’s what this family kindness challenge is all about. This is a challenge for your family, for kids, and for you to make a difference in small and meaningful ways, over a week’s time. This is one week challenge (because let’s face it, any longer than a week is a lot of commitment when it comes to family time and kids needs. Sometimes a commitment of 10 minutes is a lot to ask!)

The 7 Day Family Kindness Challenge

This challenge is simple. Gather your family and get ready to inspire and be inspired. Get ready to be the change and inspire the change in this world! Each day, you’ll open an envelope together as a family and inspire. Inspire each other, inspire others, and inspire yourself with good. Your week of challenges will be a time of growth and intention for your family. The great thing about growth is that growth doesn’t stop. Whether we’re talking about children or weeds, growing doesn’t end. And adults don’t stop growing either! This challenge is about being brave, being inspirational, and being full of intentional growth. Get ready to have fun, too!

Free kindness challenge printable for the 7 day kindness challenge.

First, print out the sheet above.

Next, get your printable challenge cards (above). You can find and print off this sheet for free, along with the other cards needed for this free 7 day challenge. Grab those at the bottom of this blog post.

Cut along the black lines and fold each section into a long rectangle. Place these, along with the printable daily instruction cards into an envelope. Each day, gather as a family and read through the cards. Be sure to allow time to do each day’s activities. This doesn’t have to be a stressful–allow time to fill these activities into your schedule. Remember that passing along positive changes to others is intentional and brave. You are the change and it is starting with your family!

7 day kindness challenge activities include noticing others and appreciating others.

Print off this challenge card and all of the others in the 7 Day Family Challenge by entering your email HERE. You will be directed to your free printable. OR just read from the info below 🙂

Kindness Challenge DAY 1: Notice.

Notice and appreciate others and the world around you. Is a friend being helpful at school? Did a stranger stop and pick up a piece of litter? Observe and tell them “thank you.” for doing something helpful that makes a difference. Does someone on the bus look sad? Ask them how they are feeling or if something happened that morning to make them sad. Do you notice a mess in your classroom or house that needs cleaning? Be the change and go beyond the expected. Soon, others will notice you being the change and will follow your example. And if no one notices your attempts? Open your mouth! Not to brag, but rather, invite others to notice their world, too.

Extra Kindness Activities:

Make a card for someone you notice having a bad day.
Create a care package for a sick friend or neighbor.
Help a stranger by holding a door.

Kindness Challenge DAY 2: Give.

A surprise gift or little treat can change a person’s whole day. A small dose of generosity can inspire a long string of kind acts. Give a compliment, give a hand, or give away items to those in need. Being generous is giving what we have or what we are. It can be easy to get swept up in schedules, homework, and household chores that need done. Be generous with your time and intention as you inspire others by being giving to others despite busyness. Share your time as you help a neighbor pull in trash cans. Or give your time by listening to a friend’s troubles with an open heart.