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Helping Busy Parents Intentionally Raise Kind Kids//Bully-Proof Your Kids//Bullying Prevention

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Thanksgiving Kindness Activities for Kids to Focus on SEL

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Inside: Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 


November is a great time to focus on turkeys and the complicated relationships between the Pilgrims and the Indigenous tribes who helped them. As teachers, we also focus on leaves and pumpkins, and autumn before we turn our attention to the winter holidays and the excitement of Winter Break. 

So we introduce these Kindness Leaves Craft and Write and this Kindness Leaves Kind or Unkind Sort and we can help kids fill out this Land Acknowledgement to honor the Indigenous tribes in our area. 

And of course it’s the perfect time to focus on gratitude and being thankful.

We can teach about gratitude with this month-long gratitude Curriculum for Social Emotional Learning or this Gratitude Pumpkin or these 12 Thankgiving-inspired Gratitude activities. 

But November is also the perfect month to focus on intentionally teaching kindness. 

To make teaching social-emotional learning easier, we use these Thanksgiving Activities for kids in this Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle. 

  Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

Why Kindness at Thanksgiving is Important: 

Kindness is important all the time, every day, every holiday. It’s not meant to be taught once a year and checked off a list. That’s why Kindness Week doesn’t work.

But if you are having a hard time fitting social-emotional learning concepts into your classroom lesson plans, November is a great time to carve out the time and connect it to other learning moments. 

You can talk about the kindness the Indigenous Peoples showed to the Pilgrims. You can talk about the kindness we show to others when we fill up food banks for food insecure families. And you can talk about kindness when we talk about taking the time to tell others why we’re grateful for them. 

But we can’t cross our fingers and hope our kids just learn about kindness. We have to explicitly and intentionally teach kids how to be kind. 

So, we can read Thanksgiving Kindness books like these with them: 

Gracias, The Thanksgiving Turkey

Gracias, the Tanksgiving Turkey

A Turkey for Thanksgiving

A Turkey for Thanksgiving

Porcupine’s Pie

Porcupine's Pie (Woodland Friends, 1)

Bear Says Thanks

Bear Says Thanks (The Bear Books)

And we can also explicitly teach kindness with this Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle you can get here. 

What’s Included in the Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle: 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

This Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle comes with:

1. Thanksgiving Kindness Emergent Reader in color

2. Thanksgiving Kindness Emergent Reader in black and white

3. Thanksgiving Kindness Discussion Starters

4. Thanksgiving Kindness writing prompts

5. Turkey Kind or Unkind Sorting Game in color and black and white

6. Turkey Kindness Writing prompts

7. Countdown to Thanksgiving Break Kindness Paper Chain

8. Thanksgiving Kindness Role-Playing Cards

9. Gratitude Kindness Notecards 

10. Gratitude Pumpkins

11. Turkey Craft and Write 

  • Small turkeys in color to draw on
  • Small turkeys in color to write on
  • Small turkeys in black and white to draw on
  • Large turkeys in black and white to write on
  • 5 different writing sheets to choose from
  • Ideas to display kindness craft, publish writing, and connect to listening and speaking skills

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

How to Use the Thanksgiving Kindness Activities for Kids Bundle: 

Purchase the Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle and then print out the resources you want to use first. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

You can start by talking about kindness in November and why it’s so essential with the Discussion starters. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

Choose which version of Thanksgiving Kindness Emergent Reader you want to use (color, black and white, or the no illustrations version). If you use the black and white version, encourage kids to use these skin color crayons so they can draw their friends and family and teacher. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

Kids can practice spreading kindness as they countdown to Thanksgiving Break with our Thanksgiving Paper Chain Kindness Countdown. Every day, kids will rip off one of the paper chains, do the kindness activity, and be one day closer to Thanksgiving Break!

The visual representation of the paper chain will show kids how many days are left without you having to answer!

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

There are plenty of writing opportunities to connect creative writing and expository writing to kindness in November, including our Turkey Craft and Write and our Thanksgiving kindness writing prompts. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

Kids can sort kind and unkind actions as a small group or as a whole group game to determine what is kind and what is not. 

They can practice different ways they can be kind on Thanksgiving with the Thanksgiving Kindness Role Playing Cards.

Use these Thanksgiving kindness role playing cards to help intentionally teach kids to be kind and giving them time to practice.

Kids can focus on gratitude with these Gratitude Pumpkins and these Gratitude Notes. 

This Gratitude Pumpkin helps you write down and focus on what they're thankful and grateful for. This is a great Thanksgiving gratitude activity for classrooms and families

Teaching kindness doesn’t have to be a chore, or something boring, or something hard. 

We can do it in a meaningful, fun, hands-on way with the resources in the Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle.

Ready to get it and focus on kindness this November with your kids? You need these Thanksgiving Kindness Activities for kids! 

Get the Thanksgiving Kindness Bundle in Teachers Pay Teachers now. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

 Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 

Use these Thanksgiving kindness activities for kids to focus on and spread kindness during November. 


The best and most meaningful Thanksgiving Gratitude Activities to help families focus on what they're really thankful for this November. #thanksgivingactivities #thanksgivingactivities #thanksgivinggratitude #gratitudeactivities #thankfulactivities #bestofthanksgiving #kidsthanksgiving #coffeeandcarpool #teachingkidstobegrateful #kidstobegrateful

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Welcome to Coffee and Carpool: Raising Kind Kids.

I’m Nicole and am a recovering elementary school teacher, a mom to three super busy kids, and the founder of The Raising Kind Kids Club where we share strategies and resources with busy parents and educators to intentionally focus on kindness, family connection, and bullying prevention.

We have hundreds of paid and free done-for-you resources to make teaching kindness and social emotional learning to kids easy, fun, and hands-on. Email me at nicole@coffeeandcarpool.com if there’s a resource that you wish you had.

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