Kindness Suns: Kind or Unkind Sort for SEL Curriculum

Inside: Use the kindness suns activity to teach sel curriculum in a fun, hands-on way this summer.

I often joke that I’m solar powered…I refill and recharge when I’m in the sun because I always feel physically and mentally better after a day in the sun.

Growing up in Southern California, the sun was a constant. But now that I live somewhere with actual seasons, I’ve come to love and appreciate those warm sunny days even more.

Sunshine feels synonymous with summer which is also a perfect time to focus on social emotional learning and character education like our Summer Bucket Kindness List, our Summer Kindness Challenge, and our July Volunteer Challenge.

We also love making these Compliment Suns for siblings and friends.

All things that help focus on kindness in the summertime.

This Kindness Suns Activity is a perfect blend of summer and social emotional learning, perfect for June, July, and August. And if you want to connect it to science and sneak in even more learning, you can also use these Our Sun Notebooking Pages.

Why Social Emotional Learning is Important

Social Emotional Learning is a crucial part of any classroom’s lesson plans.

Related: Why We Should Teach SEL

It teaches our students problem solving skills, critical thinking skills and positive relationship skills. It builds up their Emotional Intelligence, helps bully-proof them, and research has shown that it improves their academic success.

But to make social emotional learning and character education effective, we have to make it consistent, set clear expectations from our students, intentionally teach them the skills they need to be kind, and make it fun.

To do that we can use Kindness Books like these, our 60 Kindness Conversation Starters, and fun, hands-on sel curriculum like our Kindness Suns Kind or Unkind Sort Activity.

What’s Included in the Kindness Sun Kind or Sort Activity:

24 suns with kindness or unkindness clipart in color
24 suns with kindness or unkindness clipart in black and white
Kind and Unkind sorting sunglasses in color and black and white
Kindness worksheet to help kids show what they know and determine what is kind and what is not kind in color and black and white
2 writing sheets: 1 for early writers/prewriters and 1 for writers.

How to Use the Kindness Suns Activity

1. Purchase and print and laminate the cards and the Kind or Not Kind Sunglasses. If you print them in black and white, you can color in
the cards first. We used these skin color crayons!

2. Cut apart the cards.

3. Go over the pictures on the cards to ensure children understand what the picture depicts. You can use these as discussion starters before or after the activity.

4. The students will sort the cards by kind actions or unkind actions by placing the cards near the correct sunglasses. They can work in small groups in centers, independently, or as a whole group with a pocket chart.

5. To follow up the activity, students can complete the worksheet to show their understanding.

6. To connect to writing and language arts studies, draw a picture/write how they will choose to be kind this season. Prewriters can dictate their answers and then draw a picture.