SCARF at home – Activities for 3-5-year-olds
What your child will be learning about
- Things that make us the same or different from each other
- Celebrating our differences
- Showing kindness
What you can talk about together
Explain that we are all different - sometimes we like the same things as each other and sometimes different things. This makes us special. Here are some questions to start a conversation:
- What would it be like if everyone was the same?
- Can you think of some reasons why it’s good that people are different from each other (e.g. we have different skills and talents, so we can help each other. It's good for teamwork. It makes life more interesting. Different people come up with different ideas, inventions, answers to problems and things that can help the world to be a better place for all of us).
- Why is kindness important?
- What quick and easy ways to show kindness are there?
Activity 1 - You Choose!
This activity uses the book You Choose by Pippa Goodhart.
Click on the picture for a version of this book on YouTube - please check this before watching it with a child.
Watch through the film together. You can pause it to look at the pictures together and decide what you'd each choose.
Talking points:
- What did we choose that was the same as each other?
- What did we choose that was different?
Activity 2 - Different and special
This next activity uses a different book - Elmer by David McKee.
Click on the picture for a version of this book on YouTube, read by the author. Please check this before watching it with a child.
Afterwards, talk about the party that the elephants had at the end of the story. Point out how all the elephants decorated themselves to include Elmer; this was to celebrate Elmer’s differences and special qualities. By making themselves colourful and patterned the elephants showed Elmer he is part of the herd (group).
Talking points:
- How does Elmer feel when they have the party?
- How do the other elephants feel when they give the party for Elmer?
- When we are kind to each other, how does that make us feel?
Activity 3 -Kindness 1
Continue the idea of kindness helping the person being kind to feel good, as well as the person they're being kind to with this next activity.
Complete this poster together. If you don't have a printer, copy it onto some paper - you could make your own rainbow design!
Start by talking about the small things that we can do every day to show kindness - like kind words, being helpful around the home, sharing things etc.
Click on the picture to make it bigger or to print it.
Activity 4 - Kindness 2
Here's another activity to help you discuss kindness with your child.
Again, if you don't have a printer, you could write the story out, leaving gaps. Your child could draw the pictures in the gaps, or you could just talk through the story and guess which picture fits where.
Click on the picture to make it bigger or to print it.
If your child enjoyed this, they could make up their own Kindness story.