Welcome to the series:
Acts of Kindness for Toddlers and Preschoolers!
Pennies of Time has joined up with 4 other kid experts to give you easy, simple acts of kindness that toddlers and preschoolers can do.
The focus of Pennies of Time is to spend 15-20 minutes each day helping someone else. We have the best time in brightening the days of those around us. Last Spring for our Dad's birthday, we did 42 Acts of Service as a family. One of the acts that we had the most fun with was: burying treasure!
Burying Treasure:
An Act of Kindness that Toddlers and Preschoolers Can Do
This week, we went and found our favorite items to bury. (We spent under $3 for our treasure.):
- gems
- gold pieces (buttons)
- gold doubloons (coins)
We went to two of our favorite parks to bury treasure before the rest of the toddler and preschooler world had arrived so we could do it in secret.
a playground by the school
a sand park
At the playground by the school, we buried our treasure in the areas where toddlers and preschoolers naturally mess around in the ground cover.
The sand park is a no brainer, right! Kids dig digging in the sand!
We love talking about where we should bury the treasure, how excited the unsuspecting treasure hunters will be when they see the surprise treasure, and who they might think buried the treasure there. Pirates? Royalty? A robber? A princess?
The kids have so much fun running around and burying treasure before anyone sees them.
- "This one I am going to bury REAL DEEP!"
- "Ohh, this one is perfect for little babies. I am going to just put it on top so the baby sees it."
Who would have guessed that burying treasure would force the littlest of us to think about others. But, with just a small suggestion, the kids latched on to the idea and went with it. Of course, there is the option to bury your treasure, dig it up, and rebury it again for the fun of it!
My kids love doing this act of kindness. In fact, when Big Brother, who is in first grade, found out his missed this one, he was bitterly disappointed.
While we were at the sand park, we found a surprise while digging around: Treasure we did not bury!
Seriously--it was a totally surprise. Treasure, but not the treasure we brought that day. We found OTHER treasure! I mean it. We found gemstones that we had never buried there. And then, after a little more digging, we found some of the same treasure that we had buried months ago, buried in different spots than where we initially buried it.
The kids were SO excited! Without our knowing it, they had started a treasure burying sand park! Other families were reciprocating by burying treasure, too.
We had a great morning filled with fun and the added bonus of hiding away fun for others!
Don't miss out on the Acts of Kindness for Toddlers and Preschoolers that these fabulous sites have to share!
Learn with Play at Home: Letter for the Postman
Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds: Making Bread for Someone Special
The Imagination Tree: Kindness Elves
Kindness On the Go: What is in our Kindness Kit?
Ideas focused on helping the elderly or seniors in your community:
To help someone going through chemotherapy:
Care kit for the homeless:
That is such a lovely idea! My kids would love that. Imagine the excitement of the other children finding those treasures! We'll be having a go of this for sure! Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deborah! How is it that helping others can be so much fun!
DeleteWhat a fun activity! Your creativity and generosity continues to astound me!
ReplyDelete