Inside: Use this Fall Kindness Bucket List Activity to help kids spread kindness throughout the autumn months with easy, kid-friendly activities.
With the end of the hot, lazy days, comes the promise of cool, crisp fall days.
Fall is always a welcome reprieve to the long hot days of summer.
We bust out the sweaters, and eat everything pumpkin spice, and go apple picking so we can attempt to make apple pie.
The leaves change as our kids head back to school to meet up with old friends and make new friends.
It’s hard to not love fall.
We get to celebrate all things Back to School and Halloween and Thanksgiving with these Back to School Kindness Pencil Toppers, Halloween Kindness Notes and Gratitude Pumpkins.
And we can also encourage them to spread kindness to those around them this fall with our Fall Kindness Bucketlist.
Why We Need to Focus on Kindness in the Fall
Some kids know how to be kind. It seems to be innate, and part of their very soul.
But most kids, my kids included, need to be taught how to be kind. Luckily, kindness is a skill we can teach.
In our family, being kind is so essential, kindness is one of our only two family rules.
And speaking and acting with kindness is perfect for fall since our kids are headed back to school around new students.
We celebrate fall and sneak in a little kindness at the same time with our Fall Kindness Challenge and the October Family Volunteering Activity and November Volunteering Activity.
We intentionally teach kindness and Social-Emotional Learning with this Apple Kind or Unkind Sort, Pumpkin Kind or Unkind Sort, and these Kindness Leaves.
And we use this Fall Kindness Bucketlist to work together to help others.
How to Use the Fall Kindness Bucket List:
1. Print and download the Fall Kindness Bucketlist printable (download it below).
2. You can print it in color or in black and white to save on ink.
3. If you’re a parent, you can print one for each of your children or if they’re younger, complete it as a family.
If you’re an educator, print one off for each of your students and challenge them to do each activity before the end of fall.
4. Throughout the fall, challenge them to do one thing off the Fall Bucket list checklist.
And while the original concept of a Bucket List is things you want to do before you “kick the bucket,” you can explain to kids that it’s a list of things we want to do to help fill other people’s buckets.
These books will help explain the concept:
How Full is Your Bucket?– Bucket Filling is a simple metaphor for “filling” people up and improving the lives of the people around us through kind words and actions.
5. They can check off each apple bucket as they complete the kindness activity or color in the bucket when they finish it.
6. To “reward” their kindness when they complete the kindness list, you can eat apples and caramel or apples and honey or go leaf stomping together.
And while we don’t want kids to get into the habit of needing a reward for showing kindness, most kids need a little motivation and positive reinforcement to keep going.
Because these kindness activities, while they seem simple enough, will get our kids into the habit of being kind more often… which will set them up for a much kinder school year.
Download the Fall Kindness Bucket List here
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