106 Kindness Books & Activities for Elementary & Middle Grades

 

The month of February is dedicated to friendship, kindness, empathy and love.  When I was curating the book display for my students across grades kindergarten through fifth grade, I began seeing common themes arise:  how kindness is shown between people, towards animals, between animals, with grandparents, and towards oneself.  

During my library lessons I book-talked these books with the themes and my students responded with interest and enthusiasm.  They began recalling other stories that fit in the themes that I hadn't added so they recommended them to their classmates.  Every class that came through the library selected books from the kindness display and discussed their choices with their classmates.  This led me to share my list below along with extension ideas:

Extension ideas that go with these books and themes are numerous:

1. Give students the themes, then book-talk a book or show the cover and have them guess what theme it would be.
2. Ask students to write or draw a story from their life that exhibited kindness.  Have them share with and ask others to determine the theme.
3. After choosing a book, ask students to create an artifact, button design or keychain charm that pairs well with the theme of the book.
4. Allow students to use a video creation application to tell which book they recommend to others. You can show them vintage Reading Rainbow clips as inspiration. 
   
   
5. Give students a random picture, ask them to think of a story that incorporates the picture with a kindness theme. If they are stuck give them the prompt, "Once upon a time in ________ (setting) there was a __________(character) who wanted to _____________ but couldn't (plot). Then _______(climax) came along and ___________(resolution).  Let them pair up and combine their picture prompts and story ideas. They can even share them with others or act them out.

Do you have more books and/or activities to suggest that go well with these themes? Please share them in the comments below!