Most of the time, when we are having conversations with our students about gratitude, it’s in November. I wrote an entire post HERE about building thankfulness in the Fall. Thanksgiving is a great time to pause and consider all of the good things in your life.
However, I’m here to advocate that we should be finding ways to practice gratitude with our students all year long! Today, I have a few different ways to work gratitude into the classroom, even outside of the month of November.
Thank Community Helpers
In light of all of the things that have happened recently, we have many reasons to be thankful for community helpers and essential workers! Thanking these community helpers is a great exercise in gratitude. This could easily be done during a Work on Writing center or as morning work!
Encourage your students to think about the people in their neighborhoods, communities, and families who have worked a job that made life safer, run more smoothly, or just better for everyone else! Grocery store employees, doctors, nurses, garbage collectors, teachers, firefighters, etc! Giving students a few minutes to consider how their lives are better because of the essential workers in their community will help them feel more grateful!
I’ve also included a digital version if your students can handle sending a note via email!
You can grab my Community Help Thank You Notes HERE to have a pre-made collection of cards that are ready for students to complete!
Thank the School Staff
Another way to practice gratitude with your students is by creating thank you cards for staff in your school! Think about people like bus drivers, cafeteria staff, custodians, etc. These are people who aren’t thanked very often, but they are keeping the school running well!
Have students pause to create a nice card for someone in your building. It will help your students feel more grateful, and will make a staff member’s day!
Model Gratitude by Thanking your Students!
A great way to instill an attitude of gratitude in your classroom is to model it! Take any opportunity you can to write a thank you note to one of your students.
This is a simple way to keep the spirit of thankfulness alive in your classroom well beyond November. You can make things easier on yourself by prepping dozens of pre-made thank you cards for students at once. That way, you always have one ready to hand to a student!
I’ve included a digital version too so you can easily email {and save paper!}
Use these ideas to build a classroom culture of thankfulness, all year long! Happy teaching!
