Early Education Kindness Posters to Foster Kindness

Inside: Use these early education kindness posters to help our youngest students learn about social emotional concepts like kindness, taking turns, sharing, and playing fair.

When my kids were 2 and 3, we spent time in Ms. Dana’s Mommy and Me class. I was with Dana for three years, one year with each of my kids and I learned so much about me as a parent and how to interact with my kids in positive, healthy ways.

Dana was a gift.

And in her classroom, my kids thrived. It was her, it was her activities and invitations to play, and it was her classroom environment.

All around her room at their eye level, she hung up posters of kids their age playing in appropriate ways.

My kids were always drawn to those pictures and so was I.

Then a few years later when I was in the class with my youngest daughter, I realized one of the posters was new but familiar. It was an older picture of my eldest daughter when she was 2 working hard on a big tower of blocks.

And that quickly became our new favorite poster.

Kids learn a lot from their environment and the things teachers hang on the walls…if we hang the “right” things.

So with that in mind, we created these Early Education Kindness Posters to hang up in Preschool, PreK, TK, Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms and daycares to help teach kindness concepts to our youngest students.

Why Kindness Posters ALONE won’t Work

Many, many schools hang up Kindness Posters and anti-bullying posters and then they check of their Character Education and Social Emotional Learning off their to do list.

And kindness posters, no matter how awesome they are, won’t work if they’re hung up in our classrooms or hallways and then ignored.

Related: Why Kindness Week Doesn’t Work

My daughter and many of her peers were bullied in the hallways covered in anti-bullying messages and ‘We are a Kind School‘ posters.

Just like an alphabet poster hung in our classroom won’t teach the alphabet, kindness posters won’t teach kindness.

But, if we use these early education kindness posters to supplement, encourage, and remind students about kindness that we’re already teaching, then they’re a powerful addition to any sel curriculum.

So we have to intentionally teach kids how to be kind and build a positive classroom environment so these kindness posters aren’t ironic or ignored. (Read the 5 ideas below to effectively use these posters)

For our young students, we can use the Kindness Zoo to teach the alphabet, animals, and kindness concepts all at the same time.

We can also use these Kindness Emergent Reader Books to introduce and dig into 18 different kindness topics including I am Kind at School, I am Kind in the Cafeteria, I am Kind on the Playground.

Our young students also love our Kindness Coloring Pages, our Kindness Tracing Sheets to practice their letter formation and focus on kindness messages, and they

Our Early Education Kindness Posters Include:

These Early Education Kindness Posters come with 10 Digital Posters you can print on 11 x 17 paper that cover Kindness and SEL Concepts:

Play Fair
Share Toys
Be a Good Friend
Invite Others
Be a Helper
Be Friendly
Work Together
Wait Patiently
Be Kind
Spread Kindness, Not Germs

Want posters for older students? You’ll love our Classroom Kindness Posters

How to Use these Early Education Kindness Posters Effectively to Support SEL Curriculum

So posters don’t work if we hang them up and ignore them or never use them.

But we can make them effective assets to our classrooms and hallways.

1. Purchase and print the posters (a digital file will be sent to you) on 11 x 17 paper.

2. Hang the posters you love the most at your students’ eye level where they’ll see them.

3. Show them a poster, one at a time

Point out the poster and talk about it as a social-emotional learning minilesson. Introduce the posters one at a time so students take notice of it and really build their understanding as to why it’s in their classroom.

Ask them questions like these:

What is happening in this picture?
The words say “Be a Helper.” What does that mean?
Why do you think this is important?
Has anyone ever helped you before?
How does it feel to help others?
Has anyone in our class helped you? How did that feel?
What are some ways you can be a helper in our classroom?

4. Reinforce and the Message and Use Positive Reinforcement

When your students do something on a poster you’ve already talked about, pause and point it. Label their behavior and label them: Wow! That was so helpful when you picked up what dropped. You are a helper. You are helpful. Thank you so much.

To increase “buy-in,” and to continue the behavior we want to encourage, teachers often use positive reinforcement.

We want our students to be kind without needing a reward to do it, but for our youngest students and for our reluctantly kind students, we need to give them the extra ‘carrot’ to make being kind more of a habit.

You can use our You’re so Sweet Class Kindness Reward or use this Kindness Hole Chart for personal students.

You can also use our Interactive Kindness Bulletin Board so students can visually see how many kind acts are happening all around them.

5. Teach another kindness concept on a new poster

Continue teaching and introducing each poster, asking questions about it, and reinforcing the message throughout your day.

As students show or forget to show the kindness concept, refer to the poster: Oh, in our classroom we play fair. We take turns and follow the rules of the game so everyone wants to play, gets a turn, and has fun.

Our students won’t intrinsically look at a picture we hang up in our class and “get it.”

Just like they won’t look at a poster with an ‘A’ on it and know that’s an A and it says /a/ and it helps us say “apple.”

We have to intentionally teach these learning concepts.

And teaching about kindness is no different.

Grab these early education kindness posters to make teaching the social-emotional learning concepts easier and more concrete.

Ready to get started? Purchase our Early Education Kindness Posters

Purchase them in our online store

Purchase them on Teachers Pay Teachers