Kindness bingo

How to run a kindness bingo week

The page opens with the school list loaded. Use Start from above the box to switch to the grown-up list, then cut anything that does not fit your group and add your own: "Thank the school nurse", "Tidy the PE store", "Make a welcome sign for the new starter". Your edited list stays in this browser for next time. Nothing is called out loud, so there is no caller sheet: everyone works through their own card in their own time.

One week, one card each

The format is one week, one card each: hand out the cards on a Monday and collect them on Friday. World Kindness Day is 13 November, so the week that leads up to it is an obvious choice, but the game works in any week of the year. A 5x5 card has 24 kind acts around the free space. A line through the middle needs only four of them, which most children can manage in a school week without it feeling like homework; any other line needs five. The full card, 24 acts, is about five a day, so treat it as a stretch goal or let it run for a month. A square is done when the act is done: the player ticks or colours it in themselves, and nobody has to prove anything. Every card has the same acts in a different order, so two friends at one table are aiming at different squares instead of competing for the same ones.

The free space can carry your own words. Type Be kind to yourself into Free space text and it is printed in the middle square of every card, a reminder that the one person nobody on the card mentions counts too.

Sharing without turning it into a competition

The point is the acts, not the score, so do not give a prize for the most squares: a kindness week that turns into a competition rewards the loudest, not the kindest. At the end of each day ask two or three volunteers to tell the class one thing they did and what happened next, not how many they have. A paper chain works well: every act anyone ticks adds one link to a single class chain, so the total belongs to everyone and nobody is last. When someone gets a line, the whole class cheers it, and they carry on towards the next one. Do not ask children to write down who they helped. The cards have no name line for that reason: a card pinned on a wall should not list classmates who were sad, stuck or left out.

At work or at home

The grown-up list is for a team, a staff room or a household. Make it optional, keep it out of anyone's performance review and let people tick their own cards in private; a five-minute round at the Friday meeting, where anyone who wants to shares one act, is enough. For a home, put a card on the fridge for each person, children included.

What is and is not on the lists

Both lists were written to be printed by a careful parent or a strict HR department. No act asks anyone to spend or give money, none involves other people's children, and none needs anyone's address, phone number or other personal details. Acts like "Check on a neighbour" or "Phone an older relative" mean people the player already knows. For a younger class, choose 3x3 (eight acts and the free space) or 4x4 (sixteen acts, no centre square), and cut entries your pupils cannot do alone, like "Show a visitor the way".

Printing

Press Download PDF for a print-ready file, or Print cards to print straight from the browser (set scale to 100% and margins to Default). At two per page, 30 cards fit on 15 sheets of Letter or A4, and each square is big enough to colour in or tick. Use 1 per page if you want to pin the cards up as a display, or 4 per page for a 3x3 card for small children.