The Kindness Quilt

Name: The Kindness Quilt
Author: Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

A story that explores service and opens a conversation with your child.

★★★★★ Loved by families

Read the Guiding Questions Find this book →

♥ This book teaches: Service. using what you have to help others.

Before, During & After Reading

Guiding Questions for Parents.

Definition : Service is doing something nice or helpful for someone else. Summary: The book begins with a story within the story, Aesop’s Fable about “The Lion and the Mouse.” The rabbit family discusses the moral of the story - no matter what size you are you can do something kind. They begin a kindness project, to record acts of kindness in pictures on squares that can be joined together to make a quilt. Minna Rabbit brings the small kindness quilt she made a home for show and tell - this inspires the whole class to add their own squares to the quilt, eventually filling up the bulletin board in the classroom. The whole school gets involved until the hallway walls are filled with hand-drawn pictures of acts of kindness! Lesson Objectives:

Students are inspired to make their own kindness quilt which gives them lots of ideas from classmates about acts of kindness they can perform at home, at school, and in the community.

Guiding Questions:

Can you retell the story “The Lion and the Mouse” in your own words? What happens first, next, and at the end of the story?
What did the Lion learn from the Mouse?
What is a quilt? What are real quilts made of? Do you have one at home?
What did the rabbit children decide to do to celebrate kindness?
What did Minna choose to draw for her kindness quilt?
How did the class kindness quilt grow?
Ask your family to contribute pictures to a family kindness quilt.
Tell your teacher about this story and ask if the class can make a kindness quilt.
What are some acts of kindness mentioned in the story?
Do you have a favorite act of kindness you like to do?

🌿 Virtue Connection: Service means using what you have been given to help others.

Activities for This Story.

Activity: Students are shown the read-aloud video, “The Kindness Quilt.” They create their own kindness quilt by decorating squares that feature their own acts of kindness.

Materials needed: the video; squares of paper that can be written on and decorated (5 “x 5” or any size); decorating and writing materials; glue or a means of attaching the squares to cover a bulletin board or large space

Directions: Introduce the video and explain the activity: “The students in this story got very excited about creating their own ‘Kindness Quilt’ and I thought you’d like to make one for our classroom. Today we will brainstorm acts of kindness that can be done at home, at school, or in your community. I will post the list in our classroom so you can choose one from the list (or think of your own). You will have all day to make it happen. Then tomorrow I will give you time to make a square about your act of kindness. You will write what you did, and decorate the square. We will do this everyday for 2 weeks. Each day we will combine the squares we have and hang our emerging quilt in our classroom.” Today, lead students in a brainstorming session, and make a list of their ideas to post in the classroom. On Day #2 and the following days, give students support and the materials to create quilt squares, and hang up their contributions (put them together first). At the end of the 2-week activity, do a show and tell. Students can share about their favorite act of kindness, and why they liked it.

Wrap it up: Explain: “I’m very proud of all of you and the beautiful quilt you made! Even though the activity is over, please keep it up and do acts of kindness every day! When I see or hear about something extra special, I’ll let you know and if you’d like, you can tell your classmates about it.”

About the Story.

This guide is part of the Values & Virtues library, a free collection of 400+ book guides and activities organized around 12 core virtues for children from pre-K to 6th grade. Each guide includes Guiding Questions designed to open a real conversation with your child in 10 minutes or less.