Punching out Kindness

Want to teach your child about being kind? Try this fun kindness challenge.

We are spreading kindness this month through our 100 Acts of Kindness project. We are challenging our readers to perform 100 acts of kindness between Jan 16th and Feb 14th. You can read more about our kindness challenge here. Many of our blogging friends have joined the challenge and will be sharing ways that you can spread kindness here and on their blogs.

Alright... so kindness and punching might not totally go together... but I've been dying to try out this punch box idea, so I figured out a way to tie it in with our Kindness Challenge.

Have you figured out how you are going to keep track of your 100 Acts of Kindness yet (if you are participating)?

One thing that is tricky with my almost 4 yr old is understanding numbers up to 100 (since he can't count that high yet)... so we start small and just keep track of our acts of kindness in groups of 25.

We'll be using a different method for keeping track of each group of 25 until we hit our goal of 100 acts of kindness. Today we got the whole family involved to make this punch box. 

Each time someone does a simple act of kindness, we get to head on over to the punch box and PUNCH out a circle.  

Inside the circles we find little treats or pieces of paper that have special activities we can do together (cuddling and reading a book, playing outside riding bikes, etc).

I'm almost as excited about it this as my (almost) four year old! 

So, do you want to know how we made it? (There is also another simple tutorial here)

Materials Needed: 

• 2 pieces of poster board or matte board 
• paint 
• paintbrushes
• drill or circle punch
• dixie cups
• tape
• scissors
• tissue paper

Directions

1. Grab your drill and circle drill bit (I hope that is what it is called?)

2. Drill 25 circles in your board. I really wanted to make hearts instead... but it would've taken so long!

My son and I thought watching this was so cool... and I think my husband had fun too

3. Paint your board. We sponge painted it with lots of colors. Can you tell my son helped out?

4. Cut out squares of tissue paper and tape them to the back of the board over each circle.

5. Fill up dixie cups with treats (my son did this). We practiced counting 3 treats into a few of the cups.

6. Then tape them to the back of the board. Painter's tape doesn't really work that well, but it was ok enough that I didn't redo it.

7. Tape the other matte board/poster board to the back of the cups to hold the punch box in place.

9. Set it up somewhere where you will see it often and be reminded to perform acts of kindness!

My son loved telling me about all of the kind things he had done during the day...

And then he loved punching through the holes too! 

Now that we've created this we can use it throughout the day when we are home and let my son "punch" out his acts of kindness. Once all of the holes are punched through we will know that we've completed 25 acts of kindness!

In addition to being fun for our kindness challenge, don't you think this punch box would be an awesome addition to any kids party... in lieu of maybe a pinata? I think I'll be saving this to use again for the Kids Valentine's Day Party/Kindness celebration that I am hosting on Valentine' Day.

Can I just tell you how much happier our day went today as we focused on kindness? I am so excited for four weeks of extra thoughtfulness in our home. It is just lovely (other than maybe tonight at bedtime when my son was anything but kind... ah, they can only hold it together for so long, I guess?)

Anyways, one of my goals for 2012 is try out a lot of the things I pin on pinterest... so I'm excited to check this one off the list.

I've created a "100 Acts of Kindness" pinboard on Pinterest, so I'll be adding this idea there along with many others, so feel free to stop by if you want more kindness activities to do.

If you happened to miss our first week's Kindness Challenge or any other kindness challenge posts, you can just click on the links below and catch up:

Kindness Challenge #1: Saying Thank You

100 Acts of Kindness and Whoopie Pie Love