We LOVE this fabulous idea from fellow Mac Kid PM Colleen, and think you will too! And it fits in perfectly with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day of service, helping to foster giving and community service.
This past week, I found myself staring down at our good deed jars that sat empty on the counter.
Last year, I heard about the good deed jar idea and immediately put it into action in our home. It's a great way to share the true meaning giving and doing things for others with your children. What we did was come up with 24 good deeds that we wanted our children to do and we put them into a word document so that we could print it out three times.
When my six-year-old daughter saw the three empty jars sitting on the counter, she kept asking for the jars to be filled. She had great memories of pulling a slip of paper with one good deed from the jar each day. With her encouragement, I finally took a minute at the computer and found the document. Then she and my 8-year-old son cut the slips of paper, giving each sibling 24 slips. To let my 3-year-old in on the action, I let her cut up a scrap sheet of paper and talked with her about what would be some of the good deeds she could do.
Below is our list, feel free to copy it and edit as appropriate for the ages of your kids and the good deeds you would like them to do. We give our children an allowance each week and they have to put 10 percent of what they receive in "charitable giving" so that may help explain that good deed. May your home and our community be filled with good deeds this new year!
- Give someone a hug today.
- Hold the door for someone.
- Pick up a piece of litter.
- Let someone else go first.
- Share something that is yours.
- Help clean up.
- Clean your room without being asked to.
- Say something nice to someone.
- Call your grandparents just to say hello.
- Choose a charity to give some of your charitable giving to.
- Hang your coat up.
- Vacuum a room.
- Unpack your lunchbox.
- Help get your lunchbox ready.
- Get dressed for school without being told to.
- Play nicely with a younger child.
- Read a story to someone.
- Color a picture for a cousin and mail it to them.
- Help with laundry.
- Put someone else’s toys away for them.
- Send an encouraging card to child through www.makeachildsmile.org
- Thank a soldier at www.letssaythanks.com
- Give someone a compliment.
- Smile at three people today.
