My mama heart skipped a beat last week when Emmett came to me asking if we could ‘say thank you’ to the firefighters in our neighbourhood. You see, he’d just had firefighters come into his class to talk about what they do to keep our community safe, and in his sweet little heart he thought that we should be thanking them.
I 100% wanted to jump on board and support his plan, and it also got me thinking. How do I keep this kindness going? How can I help him focus on ways that he can show kindness to others every day?
If you guys have been following along, you’ll know that we’ve been working with Local Love this year. They encourage, support and celebrate the idea of serving your local community, and we’re completely aligned to that. They’ve inspired us to find ways to serve our community throughout the year (check out the examples here and here of other activities we’ve done), and they’re helping build the next generation of community builders!
So, I thought if I wanted to help inspire Em to serve his community all the time (not just once in a while), what better way to encourage that behaviour than through setting up our own little advent countdown using 24 Days of Kindness. All the activities are built to be appropriate for preschoolers, so that we can both commit to doing the activities every day (with minor tweaks – I might share a snack instead of a toy).
And whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I can’t think of a better way to wrap up the year than with daily acts of kindness to others in your community!
Our 24 Days of Kindness:
(you can reorganize or tweak them to fit your schedule)
- Smile at someone new
- Share a toy
- Let someone have the first turn
- Give someone a compliment
- Write a kind note to someone
- Give a friend a hug (but ask first!)
- Leave a treat for the mail carriers
- Write a thank you note for our local firefighters and deliver it
- Bring your teachers a hot coffee
- Tell a store cashier that you appreciate them
- Buy a toy that you would love and then donate it
- Bake (or buy!) cookies and deliver them to your neighbours
- Wish someone Happy Holidays
- Make a handmade gift for someone you love
- Call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while
- Offer to help shovel a neighbour’s walkway
- Hold the door for the person behind you
- Bring a snack or hot chocolate to the crossing guard
- Give extra snuggles to your dog and brush his fur
- Let your brother (or sister) play with one of your favourite toys
- Tell your mom or dad something you love about them
- Send a letter to a soldier
- Make (or fill) a bird feeder and put it up
- Choose three toys that you’d like to pass along to another family
Need a little bit more inspiration to get out there and show your Local Love? For more amazing ways to serve your community, sign up for the weekly Good News Letter – I promise it’ll be the happiest thing in your inbox each week.
Note: I have partnered with YMC and Local Love to create this content and have received compensation for this post. All opinions are of course my own!
