Inside: Use this kindness crossword puzzle to help teach kindness vocabulary and as a supplement to your sel curriculum and character education.
When I was a young adult, I got on a crossword puzzle kick with my husband and best friend. We were constantly trying to solve the puzzles together to keep our brains active and challenge ourselves to increase our vocabulary.
Maybe we loved them because we remember doing crosswords in school as an activity for science and social studies lessons.
And crossword puzzles have so many benefits. So if we’re teaching our students to intentionally be kind through sel curriculum and character education, this kindness-themed crossword will help your students.
As a stand-alone activity, a crossword puzzle is not enough to teach kindness, just like a crossword on dinosaurs would never really teach our students all about dinosaurs.
However, these kindness crosswords can be used as a fun extension activity to reinforce what we’re learning in a fun way that improves our spatial reasoning skills and reaches students who otherwise would have lost attention if we only relied on lectures and worksheets to teach our subject.
Why Knowing Kindness Vocabulary is Important
If we want our kids to be kind, we have to set very clear expectations so they know what we want from them.
Educators: The Only Two Classroom Rules You’ll Need
Parents: The Only Two Family Rules You’ll Need
When it comes to kindness, we can’t just say, “Be Kind.” Instead, we have to teach them what kindness is, and what it is not.
Related: The Difference Between Nice and Kind and Why it Matters
We also have to show them all the different ways to speak and act with kindness and what kindness encompasses:
- compassion
- friendly
- good friend
- includer
- upstander
- thoughtful
- helpful
- gratitude
- manners
And we have to use vocabulary strategies so students understand what the words truly mean. This is especially important since a clear understanding of the words and concepts will guide them to speak and act in a certain and very specific way.
Related: Hands-On Social Emotional Learning Vocabulary Activity
Our goal for our kids is to speak and act with kindness more often, with less reminders from us. That only happens when they have a very clear understanding of how to speak and how to act and how not to speak and how not to act.
Fun Ways to Teach and Reinforce SEL Curriculum
When we make social-emotional learning fun, our students and kids want to participate.
When they want to participate, it becomes more ingrained in their everyday knowledge and will become a habit.
And we can use this Kindness Crossword Puzzle.
How to Use This Kindness Crossword Puzzle
1. Download and print the kindness crossword puzzle (download them below).
2. Offer the crossword puzzle to students when they finish their work early, as an extension of a sel vocabulary lesson, for rainy day/indoor recess activities, for Fun Fridays, or as a boredom buster.
Students can complete these independently, in small groups during centers, or even as a whole group as you’re teaching the vocabulary.
3. Review the words on the kindness crossword so kids know what each word means and encourage students to find each word. If students need help you can use our Kindness Vocabulary or Kindness Dictionary to help teach the nuances of these words so students really understand and attach meaning to these words.
Because unless our kids have a clear understanding of what the words mean, students won’t feel successful in completing this kindness crossword puzzle.
Ready to get the Kindness Crossword Puzzle?
Download the Kindness Crossword here.
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