Summer of Compassion: Kids’ Activity Calendar to Inspire Kindness to Animals

The end of the school year can be bittersweet. On one hand, a three-month break from lesson planning, grading, and more grading is in sight! But on the other, the students you met back in September are a little bigger and a lot brighter—plus more compassionate, thanks to all your hard work as a humane educator—and you’ll miss them. Just because they’re no longer on your roster, though, doesn’t mean they won’t continue to benefit from all the lessons in kindness that you provided them with. Send them off to the next grade level with three months’ worth of fun activities to remind them all summer long.

TeachKind’s Compassionate Summer Activities Calendar includes over 50 engaging activities to get students moving, thinking, and practicing the Golden Rule all summer long. Each week has a theme, such as “Make the World a Better Place” or “Hero to Animals,” and includes one “Fun Free Day,” which encourages them to get creative and think of something kind to do for an animal all on their own. At the end of each week, students can tally up their activities so that they have a rewarding visual representation of their efforts for animals.

For rainy days or for students who don’t have access to the internet, we offer informative, animal-inspired coloring sheets on the back of each calendar in addition to makeup days at the end of each month—so everyone will have plenty of opportunities to exercise their empathy this summer. The goal of this calendar isn’t necessarily to encourage students to do every single activity but rather to inspire them to be more considerate of the animals they share the world with.

At the start of the next school year, invite students to show you the calendars they worked on and tell you all about their summer of compassion. Download and print hard copies of the online materials featured in this calendar, or share the following links with students so that they can read the comics online:

• “Dolphins Belong in the Wild” coloring sheet
• A Tiger’s Life comic book
• “Orcas Belong in the Wild” coloring sheet
• A Fish’s Life comic book

Download TeachKind’s Compassionate Summer Activities Calendar!

Creating a summer reading list? Be sure to check out TeachKind’s humane book list. And don’t miss any of our teacher-friendly summer content—sign up for TeachKind News today!