Create & Share Car Window Poetry

Spread poetry and smiles!

Tap into your family’s creativity and share simple messages of inspiration, hope, and joy.

Potential Recipients

Tuck your poetry under the car window wipers wherever you happen to be.

What you’ll need

• This template from our friends at Car Window Poetry, available here (or create your own!)

• Art supplies: Crayons or colored pencils, scissors, clear packing, and tape or laminating paper

Instructions

Hear one family’s story of this project in action here.

• Create short, heart-warming poems, jokes, or artwork. You may want to use the free Car Window Poetry cards available here.

• Place your poems on car windows outside your school, playground, library, a busy grocery store, or wherever you happen to be. Note: if it's raining or remarkably windy, postpone this step a bit.

• Post your poems on Instagram with the #CarWindowPoetry. While you're at it, kindly add #DoingGoodTogether as well!

Reflection

• What kind of words, pictures, and ideas make us smile? Feel hopeful? Feel brave?

• What can we share that might cheer up other people if they’re having a hard day?

• How would you feel if you found a note like this in our car?

• Can we target this project? Who in our community could use some extra encouragement? Can we think of any organizations we might want to support (nurses at a local clinic, teachers at a local school)?

Resources

Browse the lists in Doing Good Together’s picturebook poetry collection for your next family favorite!

• Lend a Hand: Poems about Giving by John Frank.
  So much good is captured in the pages of this book. Kind acts of children are captured in the thoughtful, observant way only poetry can accomplish.

• Dictionary for a Better World: Poems, Quotes, and Anecdotes from A to Z by Irene Latham and Charles Waters
  This collection of poetry overflows with opportunities to launch big-hearted conversations.

Take it further

• Write poems to share with friends or neighbors in need of cheering up.

• Use poetry to inspire big-hearted conversations and critical thinking with these tools for educators from the National Poetry Foundation.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Support Reach Out and Read

Deploy books to build strong brains.

Join thousands of families nationwide and support programs right in your community by donating books (both new and gently-used), improving literacy-rich waiting rooms, and reading aloud to children at select program sites.

Potential Recipients

Support your local Reach Out and Read affiliate or the national Reach Out and Read program.

What you’ll need

• Print one of DGT’s bookmark templates: Explore a Story, Pass it On or blank.

• Art supplies: Crayons or colored pencils, scissors, clear packing, and tape or laminating paper

Instructions

Learn more about Reach Out and Read!

Your family can support Reach Out and Read in lots of fun ways!

• Host a virtual book drive (they make it easy!) and build a book oasis.

• Host a gently-used book drive (as local pandemic conditions allow).

• Volunteer directly as local opportunities become available.

Reflection

• In high-poverty communities in the U.S., there is only one book for every 300 children. (In higher-income neighborhoods, there are about 13 books for every child.) Does your family have access to good picture books and chapter books?

• Is there a favorite book or series you feel especially grateful for?

• Do you have a favorite reading spot at home? If so, talk about a time when you read there recently. If not, talk about what your dream book oasis might look and feel like.

Resources

Click here to preview the book.

• A Velocity of Being: Letters to a Young Reader edited by Maria Papova and Claudia Bedrick
  Perfect for book lovers ages 10 and up, this collection of deliciously inspiring essays and illustrations features writers from Neil Gaiman and Jane Goodall to Rebecca Solnit and Regina Specktor.

• Browse DGT’s Picture Books for Bibliophiles collection.

Take it further

• Donate favorite books to a local shelter or children’s hospital.

• Host a book drive for a shelter or organization in need.

• Volunteer to read to seniors at a nearby nursing home.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Start a Family Book Club

Grow big hearts one story at a time.

Grownups have book clubs – why not families? At Doing Good Together we’ve pioneered what we call the Big-Hearted Family Book Club.

We encourage families to pair a book with a related act of service, which means children get to practice kindness and build empathy while also developing a passion for books, conversation, and generosity.

Potential Recipients

Your whole family will benefit from the meaningful time you spend together. The impact of your service work will vary based on the project you choose to pair with your book.

What you’ll need

Click here for the planning worksheet!

• Print DGT’s Big-Hearted Book Club planning tool or use a blank sheet of paper.

• Supplies will vary based on the service project or kindness activity you choose to accompany your book.

Instructions

• Set time aside for your recurring family book club

• As a family, browse DGT’s Read with Empathy collection and choose 4 to 6 chapter books or picture books on a variety of topics

• As a family, browse DGT’s Pick-a-Project collection to discover service project ideas that work with your chosen topics (Hint: all of DGT’s projects feature book titles and/or applicable book lists)

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Reflection

• Was it difficult to agree on a book or books to read?

• What do you look for in a service project? Do you prefer crafts that provide comfort or projects that directly fight poverty? Something else?

• What issues do you want to learn more about as a family? Why? Can you find book titles that speak to that issue?

Resources

• Invite friends or neighbors to participate in your family’s big-hearted book club.

• Consider working with a local organization for several months in a row. For example, if you support your local food pantry, you could host a food drive one month, assemble birthday bags one month, and repackage rice and beans one month to make a difference in lots of different ways as you learn about hunger.

Take it further

• Invite friends, extended family, or neighbors to participate in your Big-Hearted Book Club

• Share your story of service and reflection with the charitable organization you supported (like the food pantry in our example above). They can use your story to amplify their mission and inspire others to support their work.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Support Operation Paperback

Share the solace of a good book.

Inspire friends and neighbors to put their dusty bookshelves to work! Collect paperbacks to send to soldiers serving overseas, their families here at home, and veterans.

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Potential Recipients

For more than 20 years, volunteers with Operation Paperback have been distributing nearly 15,000 books each month to members of the U.S. Military.

What you’ll need

• Motivation to ask friends and neighbors to share paperback books

• Box to ship books

• Art supplies to create cards for book recipients: Crayons or colored pencils, scissors, clear packing, and tape or laminating paper (optional)

Instructions

• Sign up as an Operation Paperback volunteer. (FYI: It can take a couple of days to get confirmation from the folks at Operation Paperback.)

• Wait for your volunteer application to be approved (about x days?).

• Check troop requests to inform what kind of donations you ask for.

• Collect books.

• Package and ship books. If you are sending books only, send them via media mail, which will cost about $7 for 20 books. If you choose to add treats and small gifts, you will pay a higher rate for priority mail.

Reflection

• Can you think of a time when you were stressed or far from home? What brought you comfort in that moment?

• How do you feel when you are reading a good book?

• How do you think you would feel if someone sent you a big box of new books when you were lonely or far from home?

Resources

The Impossible Patriotism Project by Linda Skeers
Explore the big idea of patriotism and celebrate heroes with this wonderful story. You'll meet Caleb, a boy stumped by an impossible assignment: make something showing patriotism. The big, bold ideas of his classmates only make Caleb feel worse. How can he show them that patriotism is more than maps and statues? His final project is stunning in its simplicity and power. You may even be inspired to visit our project instructions and write thank you letters to soldiers and their families.

Take it further

• Make Operation Paperback a monthly family service project.

• Write Letters to Soldiers.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Create a DIY Kindness Journal

Invite creative reflection about big ideas.

Keeping a compassion-themed journal is a wonderful way to build kindness into busy weeks and shine a spotlight on acts of kindness. Plus, you'll have a place to record family volunteering memories.

Possible Recipients

Keeping a family journal will result in a one-of-a-kind keepsake. These journals also make thoughtful gifts for anyone needing some encouragement.

What You'll Need

Decorate a composition notebook with duct tape. Scatter compassion-themed prompts and quotes throughout it. Then make time periodically to discuss, draw, and write about those kindness prompts as a family.

• Printed copies of our Family Service Memory reflection sheets

• Composition notebook

• Duct tape in fun colors

• Stickers

• Colored pencils, crayons, or markers

• Glue stick

Create Your Journal

Click here for one of two templates!

• Decorate the cover with duct tape, stickers, and markers.

• Choose your favorite prompts and quotes below. Using your colored pencils, crayons, or markers, artfully add a prompt or quote every few pages throughout your notebook.

• Print several of our Family Service Memory sheets. Keep them at the back of your journal to use when you complete a service project or act of kindness. After you fill out your worksheet, glue it into your journal.

Write in Your Journal

• Schedule time each week to create a journal entry.

• Set a timer for five minutes. Invite each family member to write or draw as much as they can in that time. Follow your ideas wherever they go. After the timer goes off, discuss your ideas.

• Here are some options for recording your ideas:

  • Take turns being the person to record the main ideas from a family conversation about your prompt.

  • Invite each family member to draw or write about your prompt in your journal. Then take time to discuss those ideas.

  • When you serve together, record your reflections using a Family Service Memory sheet and glue the sheet into your journal.

Kindness-Themed Journal Prompts

Make Lists:

• Who did you help today? Who helped you?

• What are you grateful for?

• What moments of this day brought you a feeling of peace or joy?

• Who would enjoy receiving a handmade card or handwritten note? Consider choosing people you know personally and/or those you have heard about in the news. Discuss your choices.

• Make a list of characteristics a good leader should have. Make a list of the characteristics a good citizen should have. How are these lists the same? How are they different?

• Make a shortlist of things you, as a family, would like to change about your community, state, or country. Then discuss what action you could take to begin working toward some of those changes.

• Make a list of things that are important about you and each of your family members that others would know just by looking. Make a list of things that are important about you and each of your family members that others would not know just by looking. Which list is longer? Which list feels more important? What does this teach us about other people?

• Who do you know (friend, neighbor, relative, classmate, anyone!) who may be struggling with loneliness, illness, or grief? Make a list of simple things you could do to help that person.

• Notice five complimentary things about your family members (or teacher or classmate, etc.).

• What causes or issues are most important to you? How can you support those causes?

• What emotions have you experienced in the past twenty-four hours?

Ask Big-Questions

• Why do you think it's important to spend some of our time giving back to the community?

• How do you think people feel when you do something kind for them? How do you feel when you've done something kind?

• Why do you think it’s important that friends, teachers, neighbors, coworkers, and students help each other throughout the day?

• What does it mean to have courage? Have you ever had to be brave?

• If you could change one thing in the world, what would you change?

• If we live in a free country, can we do whatever we want, whenever we want?

• What does it mean to live in a community with others? What rules (laws) does a society need to run smoothly?

• Talk about the distinction between courage and recklessness. Give examples of each. Emphasize the need for difficult decisions to be well-considered and the importance of acting on our values rather than our impulses.

• Together, imagine arriving in a new country without knowing the language or customs. What would it be like to have to leave home quickly and suddenly? What would you miss? How would you feel?

Ask Personal Questions

• What would life be like if (someone specific, a friend in the carpool, a neighbor, a story from school) didn’t help you out today?

• How do you make yourself feel better when you feel frustrated or angry at school? What about bored or tired? Excited?

• If you won a grand prize of $1,000, how would you spend it?

• If you won $1,000 and could not spend it on yourself or your family, how would you spend it?

• Describe a moment when you felt proud.

• Describe a moment you regret what you did or wish you had acted differently.

• What should we do if we notice something that is unfair at school or in our community?

• How does it make you feel to get a compliment? To give a compliment?

• Talk about how making certain choices might result in the loss of popularity and how to navigate that with courage.

Tell Stories

• If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Write a brief story about how you use your power to help someone.

• An older student starts making fun of your friend's new shoes. What do you do or say? What would you be afraid of? What happens next?

• Write a story, poem, or comic about a child who finds a lost or hurt pet.

• Create a biography about a kid who invents a tool to save the rainforest, end homelessness, cure an illness, or eliminate loneliness.

• Write about a disagreement you were involved in recently, but write it from the perspective of the other person.

Find More Prompts:

• Choose your favorite questions from our blog post 29 Big-Hearted Questions for More Meaningful Family Conversations. Some - but not all - have been featured here.

• Choose your favorite quotes from the images on the right or from our Inspiration Pinterest Board. For five or ten minutes write or draw about what these quotes mean to you.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.

Share Bookmark Kindness

Spread cheer and great reads.

Use our printable template, or design your own bookmarks. Then add your favorite big-hearted book recommendation to the back, and start ripples of bookish kindness. 

Potential Recipients

• Share bookmarks with patients in a nearby hospital, residents of a local nursing home, or anyone who could use some cheer.

• Include bookmarks with a community book drive.

• Give them as gifts to friends, teachers, neighbors. Or leave them (and perhaps a copy of your recommended book) in a Little Free Library.

What you’ll need

• Print one of DGT’s bookmark templates: Explore a Story, Pass it On or blank.

• Art supplies: Crayons or colored pencils, scissors, clear packing, and tape or laminating paper

Click here for the Blank Bookmarks!

Click here for the Explore a Story printable!

Cliquea aquí para imprimir en español.

Instructions

• Read any of the titles in our Read with Empathy collection.

• Decorate your bookmarks with colors, colored pencils, or markers.

• Cut around the outside of the bookmarks.

• On the back, recommend your favorite perspective-expanding book or leave a cheerful note.

• Seal with packing tape or laminate. (Optional)

• Hide your decorated bookmarks (and perhaps your recommended book) in a Little Free Library, stash them in library books, or gift them to others!

Reflection

• Why did you recommend your chosen book?

• Why is it fun to read books about characters and experiences different from your own?

• People talk about kindness having a “ripple effect.” What do you think that means? Let’s imagine the ripple effect our bookmarks might have.

Resources

Browse the lists in Doing Good Together’s Read with Empathy collection for your next picture book favorite!

Take it further

• Restock a Little Free Library.

• Leave encouraging sticky notes - along with bookmarks - in your favorite library books.

• Donate favorite books to a shelter or children’s hospital.

• Host a book drive for a shelter or organization in need.

• Volunteer to read to seniors at a nearby nursing home.

Browse the projects in our Big-Hearted Families Tookit!

Disclaimer:  Doing Good Together™ is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

The recommendations we offer are based solely on our mission to empower parents to raise children who care and contribute.