The Homefire Kindness Game: A Printable Family Board Game + App

Description

Fifteen minutes after supper. Kind choices move you forward. Nobody ever goes backwards.
A board game for the evenings when everybody has been at each other since four o’clock.

For the mom who’d like to practice kindness at home without giving one more speech about it.

You know the evening. Somebody grabbed the last popsicle, somebody else told on them, and by supper the whole house is keeping score. You’ve already said “be nice to your sister” six times. It hasn’t worked once, and you’re tired of hearing yourself say it.

That’s the evening this game was built for.

The Homefire Kindness Game is a 15-page printable board game for ages 4 to 8, played with a grown-up. It’s not a character curriculum and it’s not a lecture with a die attached. You print it once, cut it out in front of a show, and play a round in about fifteen minutes. Land on a Kindness space and you read a card about something kind (“You waited patiently in line.”). Land on a Try Again space and you hear a little story, then say the kinder choice out loud and keep going. Nobody gets sent back. That’s on purpose: kindness is something we practice, not a test we pass or fail.

What’s inside:

• A garden-gate-to-front-porch game board (36 spaces, with one gold Giving space)
• 24 Kindness cards
• 24 Try Again cards, each a short story with a kinder choice to say out loud
• How to Play, on one page, so an older sibling can run it
• The Kindness Jar week page: color a heart for every kindness somebody notices, then read them out at supper on Sunday
• A heart die that only goes up to 3, so turns stay short and nobody races away
• Six standing game markers (or use buttons)
• A Start Here page with the set-up steps and your app link

Printable, fillable and an app, one price

You get the printable game, the same game as a fillable PDF (type into the “Kindness we noticed” lines and save it), and the Kindness Game app at no extra charge. The app draws a Kindness or Try Again card on your phone, and “We did it” drops a heart into today’s jar so the week fills up where everyone can see it. Nothing to install, no login.

Before: it’s 6:30, the kids are bickering over who sits where, and you’re refereeing instead of eating.
After: somebody draws a card, says the kinder thing out loud, and gets a heart in the jar. Fifteen minutes later, the evening ends better than it started.

Will they take it seriously? They don’t have to. The cards are short and the game is quick, so it works on a silly night too. What sticks is that everyone got a turn to say something kind out loud.

Hi, I’m Robin. I raised four kids of my own, and now I’m Grandma to seven, so I’ve refereed my share of who-touched-whose-side arguments. I built The Homefire Method to hand other moms the small, steady tools I wish somebody had handed me. This one takes fifteen minutes and a printer.

Get the Homefire Kindness Game, $7
Instant download. Print it tonight and play after supper. You’ll get three files: the printable game, the fillable version, and a one-page Start Here with your app link.

Having trouble downloading? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll get you sorted.

You don’t have to be a perfect mom. You just have to keep the fire going.