About 18 months ago, a friend suggested that I start a gratitude journal. She didn’t do this for any other reason exceptthat she herself had started keeping one, and it had made a huge difference to her life, her job and just her perspective in general.
To really give it a good go, I decided to set myself a challenge. I wrote down (over a few weeks) 100 things that I am grateful for. It may sound like A LOT, but it’s incredible how easy it is once you step into a place of gratitude. The result? I felt calmer and happier about going to work, I felt more content in my relationships and friendships, and most importantly I felt really happy in myself. Being a school teacher, I instantly thought of the positive impact that this could have on the lives of students. When asked what they are grateful for, students of this generation have a tendency to focus on material possessions, such as their video games or new basketball shoes. In order to have students go a little deeper, gratitude needs to be explicitly modelled. To do this, I always recommend starting off with a class gratitude journal. Each morning, write down 5 things that you, as a class, are grateful for. This is where you have the power to model the kinds of things we can think about. Each thing should have the power to promote a bit of a discussion too. Here are just five examples:
Continue the class journal for a week or two, until you are confident in your students’ ability to find and express gratitude. Then, you guessed it! Give your class their own individual gratitude journals. It can still be difficult at a young age to think of things off the top of their head, therefore I glue a “gratitude journal prompts” sheet into the front of their journal to guide them. This resource is available for free on my TPT store! See the link below. Allow students to write in their journal at a time of day that requires some deescalation. I sometimes have their journals sitting on their desk on a Monday morning when they arrive at school as it doubles as a great way to focus them for the day. Alternatively, it can be a great activity to do after break time. I hope you find it as beneficial as I do to implement a culture of gratitude into your classroom. Before long, it will become regular practice and the importance of ‘being grateful’ will very quickly become part of your students’ vocabulary. Enjoy! x Mel x ~ The Aussie Teacher Mum ~
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About meMelbourne-based teacher and creator of classroom-ready educational resources. Archives
March 2020
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