120 Character Building Activities for Kids That Make Learning Values Fun

Children begin developing their character from an early age, and character building activities for kids help them practice important values. Through play, stories, and creativity, they learn what it means to be kind, honest, responsible, respectful, and caring.

That said, character building does not have to feel like a formal lesson. If you have a few minutes to dedicate during the weekdays, you can use these activities at school or at home (after school). If you have more time together on the weekend, we invite you to try them too!

What is Character Building?

Character building is about helping children develop positive life values, habits, and ways of treating others. Through character building, kids learn qualities like kindness, honesty, respect, responsibility, and patience. These qualities enable children to make good choices and relate well with others.

But character is not developed simply by telling children what is right or wrong. Children learn values by experiencing them and putting them into practice.

For instance, a child may know that sharing is important but still struggle to share a favorite toy. Each time they get a chance to share in a real situation, they strengthen this character. This is why there is a difference between knowing what is right and actually doing it.

Character development also happens over time. Children need years of experience and practice, and they may need reminders and support from adults along the way. Parents, teachers, siblings, and peers all influence this process.

When a parent apologizes after making a mistake, a sibling works through a disagreement, or a classmate offers help, a child learns to appreciate the importance of a strong character.

Character Traits Kids Will Build Through These Activities

Character building activities give children opportunities to practice positive values they can use in everyday life. Some of these positive traits may come naturally to your child, while others may take more time and practice.

• Responsibility
• Empathy
• Honesty
• Kindness
• Respect
• Patience
• Perseverance
• Self-Control
• Gratitude
• Courage

You do not have to work on every trait at once. Start with one or two that fit your family’s goals. You may also find that some activities help children practice two or more character traits at the same time.

Character Building Activities for Kids

The ideas below include a mix of indoor and outdoor activities, solo activities, and activities children can enjoy with parents, siblings, classmates, or friends.

Feel free to adjust the activities to fit the available space and the time you have. ou can also make them easier or more challenging as your child grows.

Responsibility Character Building Activities

Responsibility begins with small things. Even young children can learn that they have a part to play in caring for themselves, their belongings, and the people around them [*].

Here is a list of activities to give your child more opportunities for responsibility:

• Bed-making practice
• Setting the table
• Family helper challenge
• Lost and found detective (finding and returning misplaced items)
• Responsibility storytime
• Packing a school bag
• Organizing personal belongings
• Chore scavenger hunt
• Plan tomorrow challenge
• Daily responsibility quest
• Pet helper mission
• Laundry sorting race

Empathy Character Building Activities

Empathy helps children and teens understand what another person may be feeling or experiencing. A young child might comfort a crying friend, while a teen might listen without immediately giving advice.

Here is a list of activities that help them put empathy into practice:

• Labeling feelings
• Role-playing kind responses
• Playing “how would you feel?”
• Emotion collage
• Sharing toys with friends
• Watering plants daily
• “Walking in their shoes” journaling
• Sharing different points of view (favorite foods, hobbies, etc.)
• Answering empathy worksheets
• Empathy story adventure
• Active listening challenge
• Kindness helper mission

If you’re looking for more ways to build empathy, check out our empathy activities for kids for ideas to try together.

Honesty Character Building Activities

Children can practice honesty by admitting mistakes and talking about situations where telling the truth may feel difficult. To keep honesty activities fun, we can use silly scenarios, guessing games, and role-playing.

Honesty can sometimes be a difficult value to talk about, so playful activities give kids a chance to explore it in a way that’s less intimidating.

Here is a list of activities for practicing honesty:

• Create an honesty superhero
• Honesty journaling
• “What would you say?” game
• Ball of truth
• Create honesty rocks (to serve as reminders)
• Mistake-making role-play
• Honesty scenario cards
• Honesty crossword puzzle
• Honest vs. dishonest actions collage
• “Fact or pretend?” challenge
• Honesty puppet conversations
• Honesty bingo

If you’re looking for more ideas, explore our honesty activities article for additional games and activities.

Kindness Character Building Activities

Kindness can be as simple as noticing when someone needs help and choosing to do something thoughtful. Keep it fun by turning kind actions into games, creative projects, surprises, or small missions.

Here is a list of fun activities that help kids practice kindness:

• Read kindness books
• Writing thank you notes
• Role-playing kind choices
• Daily kindness challenges (checking on a friend, helping clean up, etc.)
• Create a kindness superhero
• Kindness scavenger hunt
• Start a kindness countdown
• Make a “kindness matters” craft
• Do a secret kindness act
• Make a kindness tree
• Compliment circle
• Have a family kindness challenge

I also invite you to check out our separate list of kindness activities for homes and classrooms, along with helpful tips.

Respect Character Building Activities

Children learn respect through everyday interactions with family, friends, teachers, and others. They can practice it by considering how their actions affect others. Kids who show respect are more likely to be kind and helpful and less likely to act aggressively [*].

Here is a list of activities that make learning about respect more engaging:

• Respect detective (Kids spot respectful and disrespectful words)
• Respect scenario cards
• Taking turns
• Caring for shared spaces
• “How would you feel?” short discussions
• Respectful disagreement role-play
• Turn it around (Kids change a rude response into a respectful one)
• Respect compliment circle
• Different opinions discussion
• Respect challenge jar
• Treasure hunt (finding cards with respectful actions)
• Respect traffic light (sorting actions into green, yellow, and red)

Discover more respect-themed activities to give children more chances to practice respectful words and actions.

Patience Character Building Activities

Patience helps children wait, take their time, and handle situations that do not happen as quickly as they would like. Hands-on activities work especially well because they give kids real opportunities to slow down.

Here are some activities that turn patience practice into a fun experience:

• Grow a plant
• Completing puzzles
• Bake together
• Build a tower
• Nature watch (birds, bugs, or other animals)
• Slow art challenge
• Tiny drops challenge (seeing how many small raindrops you can catch)
• Ice cube experiment
• Gardening (what to plant and care for)
• Story sequencing
• Build and rebuild (using blocks or LEGO)
• Build a tiny terrarium

Choose ones that match your child’s age and interests. I also recommend trying more of our patience activities for kids.

Perseverance Character Building Activities

Children can practice it when they try a new skill, solve a tricky puzzle, or attempt something again after making a mistake. The key is to make the challenge difficult enough to be interesting but manageable enough that children can experience progress.

Here is a list of activities that help encourage perseverance:

• Cup stacking challenge
• Paper airplane (let them try different designs)
• Work through a tricky maze
• Build the tallest possible tower
• Learn a new skill (such as juggling or dribbling a ball)
• “Keep trying” challenge cards
• Perseverance tracker (they record something they practiced daily)
• Finish the drawing
• Spoon-and-ball challenge
• Bean bag toss
• “Try three ways” game
• Drawing from memory

Self-Control Character Building Activities

Games that involve stopping, waiting, or changing direction can make self-control fun to practice. They also help kids practice skills they can use in real life, because everyday situations do not always go as planned.

Here is a list of activities that make self-control skills fun to practice:

• Play red light, green light
• Freeze dance
• Complete simple actions in a slow motion
• Self-control challenge jar
• Stop-and-think scenarios
• Don’t-touch challenge (resist touching a chosen object for a set time)
• Copy-the-pattern game
• Slow-motion race
• Don’t laugh challenge
• Follow two-step directions
• Keep a balloon in the air
• Hold a silly pose

Gratitude Character Building Activities

Gratitude helps children notice and appreciate the people, moments, and things that matter to them. These small acts of appreciation can help make the world a better place.

And practicing gratitude does not have to feel like a lesson. Kids can have fun with activities like nature walks, gratitude scavenger hunts, and thank-you notes.

Here are some hands-on activities that help kids build a habit of gratitude:

• A-to-Z thankfulness
• Gratitude nature walk
• Write or draw a thank you note for someone
• Create a thankful tree
• Gratitude scavenger hunt
• Appreciation circle
• Gratitude journaling
• Take or draw pictures (that show gratitude)
• Gratitude jar
• Keep a memory gratitude box
• Create a gratitude collage
• Make a thankful playlist

There is no shortage of ways to practice gratitude with kids! If you’re looking for even more ideas, explore this gratitude list with 10 options.

Courage Character Building Activities

Courage grows when kids have chances to try things that feel a little uncomfortable. This can be as simple as exploring a new activity, speaking in front of others, or asking for help from a classmate.

Here are some fun ways for kids to practice taking small steps outside their comfort zone:

• Speak-up challenge (share ideas on a topic)
• New food adventure
• Role-play asking for help
• Mistake practice (silly challenges where mistakes are expected)
• Brave storytelling
• Create a courage superhero
• Brave charades
• Make a courage comic strip
• Brave buddy challenge
• Goal ladder (break a big goal into small brave steps)
• Courage cards with small challenges
• Brave scenario drawing

Summary

These activities for character development give children simple ways to practice important values through play, creativity, and everyday experiences. Even a few minutes can help kids reflect on their choices.

You can also keep the learning going with our character education worksheets, which offer more guided activities.

References:

1. White, E. M., DeBoer, M. D., & Scharf, R. J. (2019). Associations Between Household Chores and Childhood Self-Competency. Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP, 40(3), 176–182. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP.0000000000000637
2. Malti, T., Peplak, J., & Zhang, L. (2020). The Development of Respect in Children and Adolescents. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 85(3), 7-99. https://doi.org/10.1111/mono.12417