Activities for Kids

Children learn best through play, storytelling, singing, metaphors, and hands-on experiences. So why not use these activities to teach kids the most important life skills of compassion, kindness, and communication with others?

The activities below are aimed at helping kids develop a deeper understanding of positive character traits and patterns that will help them grow as individuals as well as get along better with others. Example learning objectives include:

~ How to communicate with respect

~ Being truthful

~ Feeling empathy for others

~ Finding ways to be generous

~ Practicing friendliness

Browse the articles:

“What is Personal Growth?” Activity for Kids

“What is personal growth?” If your kids have asked this question, you may like to try this lovely activity to help them explore the answer: Yesterday, my two small friends and I took Einstein’s words very seriously and researched (played) outside for hours. This is a snap of what we collected. We talked about seeds… {read more}

Deep Breathing Exercise for Children {Free Printables}

Everything feels blurred and unfocused. Your shoulders drag to the floor, burdened by thoughts. Even those tiny freckles feel heavy. Gone is the clarity you had last week. It has now been replaced by chaos. Beneath a seemingly calm facade, you are a tornado of emotions swerving out of control. Your glazed-over-eyes show nothing of… {read more}

How to Be In Charge of Your Emotional Remote Control {Free Printable}

“Who controls your emotions?” I ask my youngest daughter. She gives me the look of a perplexed almost-six year old and scans the room with her pensive blue eyes. It makes me wonder if she is thinking of her friends, of a name out there that might carry the answer. Someone must surely control those… {read more}

I Saw That! {Printable Encouragement Cards}

Summary: Free printable encouragement cards for kids and why you should use them. As a child, I felt that celebrations were for those gargantuan events that happened maybe once or twice per lifetime. I saw people rejoicing around me and yet a little voice in my head kept me from feeling joy, kindness, happiness or… {read more}

Game to Build Emotional Intelligence for Preschoolers

Our body language, especially our hands, can say so much. We play a game called “My hands can say…” It’s all about miming what we feel using our hands. We make up situations and take turns using our hands to communicate how we feel. Another twist is for each one to come up with an… {read more}

Teach Kids How to Act Online {Free Printables}

If you are looking for ways to teach kids how to act online, these discussion questions and printable activities might help. Can you imagine growing up in today’s world? Where photos don’t have to be printed to be seen, information can be instantly transported via computer or phone, and anyone can blast news around the… {read more}

Encourage Loving Relationships {Printable Love Pouch}

Occasionally, we are not ourselves. We say things we don’t mean. Our words come out like little daggers instead of the concerned consonants-and-vowels-stitched phrases we had hoped for. We shout when we mean to put ourselves in a time out. We scrape tender little feelings and we make them doubt that we love them. We… {read more}

Learn About Having a Positive Attitude {Magnet Activity for Kids}

You are a living magnet. What you attract into your life is in harmony with your dominant thoughts. – Brian Tracy We used this marble wand to demonstrate and explore the concept behind the quotation above. When we surround ourselves with positive experiences, positive people and positive influences then we can be sure to have… {read more}

Printable Tool to Work on Focus

My mind wanders and for a second I forgot what led me here… I have one hand on the open fridge door, another one holding a stapler, and in the space between my twisted shoulder and my neck a phone balances awkwardly. I knew where I was going before all these distinct ideas merged into… {read more}

Mindfulness Exercises for Kids: Teaching Non-Judgementalism

In part one of this series, I introduced the concept of mindfulness. In part two, we talked about how to focus our awareness. In this post, we see how mindfulness is the focus of awareness in the present moment without judgement. This takes a lot of practice. We have been taught our whole lives to judge… {read more}

How Can We Cultivate a Positive Attitude? A Workshop for Families

I wish I could say that I woke up every day like this… That just isn’t reality, though! You will know as well as I do that life is not always full of white sheets and sunshine. The never-ending laundry pile and a forecast of rain during school drop-off are only two of the inevitable challenges a… {read more}

Mindfulness Exercises for Kids: How to Focus Awareness

Mindfulness can assist us to pay more attention to our everyday life. In part one of this series, I shared what mindfulness is and how I apply it as a therapist using Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I also gave an exercise that can explain the concept of mindfulness to children. The following exercise shows us that when… {read more}

Open When Cards: Encourage Kids Facing a Challenge

Sonya Lopez is sharing her awesome idea to help encourage a child who is facing a challenge. She says: My daughter is getting a little nervous for her first overnight camp so I made these “open when” cards. They were: Open when: You get to camp. This one was explaining that the “open when” cards are… {read more}

Mindfulness Exercises for Kids: The Concept of Mindfulness

Mindfulness has a lot of different meanings. As a Therapist, I find that Mindfulness is a very useful strategy to focus awareness on the current moment without judgement. This is very useful for kids to learn and parents to practice. In this three-part series I will describe the different parts of mindfulness as I learned… {read more}

How to Prepare Kids for New Life Experiences through Play

Whenever my kids have faced a life change, such as moving to a new country or introducing a new sibling, I have tried to use creative play to help prepare them. In addition to the usual talks over dinner or while riding in the car, play allows the kids to bring up their own topics… {read more}

Resources that Teach Kids to Build Healthy Friendships {Free Printables}

Summary: Tools to teach kids to build healthy friendships, maintain boundaries and recognise positive character traits in those around them. I remember the first time I thought I would have a friend forever. It seemed so beautifully pure to imagine that two people could spend their whole lives connected by an invisible thread, just on… {read more}

Teach Kids About Consent {Printable Conversation Cards}

Summary: Resources and a free printable set of conversation cards to teach kids about consent. “But she’s just a baby!” My heart jumped inside my chest. Did I just hear that correctly? One of my children thought that it was okay to tease someone who could not talk back. Because she was “just a baby.” Because… {read more}

Giving Children the Gift of Balance {Free Printable}

Imagine if we learned how to listen to our bodies as children. If we could respect their natural yearning for balance. Like all skills, we can learn to be more aware and take appropriate actions. This is a great tool to help children who jump from one extreme to the next. It can also be… {read more}

Positive Decision Making: A Guide for Kids {Free Printable}

Sometimes decisions make us sweat… How do you know if you’ve made the right choice? Where do you stand when your heart and your head start to tango, leaving you awkwardly in the middle? Do you know how to rocket your decision-making skills into committed and inspired choices? A Decision Rocket is a visual aid to help… {read more}

5 Activities to Help Kids Develop Emotional Sensitivity

“Mama, you look sad. What’s wrong?” I get down on my knees and give my four-year-old a hug. I tell him the truth. “Oh sweety. You are right. I am feeling a bit sad because I’m trying hard to forgive someone for doing something that hurt my feelings. It can be hard to forgive and it… {read more}

Developing a Positive Attitude: What’s the Weather Like in Your Brain? {Free Printable}

What’s the weather like in your brain? Cloudy with chances of negative thoughts? Sunny with positivity? Can you change things so imagination, hope and possibilities swim freely in your mind? Here is a cool brain re-wiring exercise for all. When we find ourselves uttering the words: “I can’t,” our mind automatically dishes out reasons and… {read more}

Activities for Kids