Tag: thankful

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Create A Space for Gratitude

November is here, and that means Thanksgiving is coming! I’ve always loved this month for several reasons— the cooler weather, the yummy Thanksgiving meal, and time with friends and family. While all of those things are awesome in and of themselves, I think my favorite thing about November is the extra focus on gratitude. Sure, I am thankful all year round, but I love the extra emphasis on it during the days leading up to Thanksgiving. 

I know not all families celebrate Thanksgiving, and that’s okay! But regardless of how or if you celebrate Turkey Day, I think we all can agree that it is good to be grateful. As teachers, we can help students understand what it means to be grateful and how to show our gratitude for someone or something. When we teach young children to acknowledge the things they are thankful for, they begin to more easily see the good things in their lives, which leads to better attitudes and more optimistic outlooks. 

So as we begin this month of giving thanks, I encourage you to find ways to work mini gratitude lessons into your curriculum. It’s helpful for students to write down the things they are grateful for and to post them in the room for all to see. This helps create a sense of community as students begin to see that others in the room are grateful for similar things as they are, and also to help others find gratitude in things they may not have previously thought of. One way to do this is to create a “gratitude space” in your classroom. You can do this by devoting a wall or bulletin board to thankful thoughts, creating a large tree trunk that students can add leaves to, or by making a line of gratitude thoughts that follows the perimeter of your room. I’ve included a free resource you can print out and use in your classroom. Print the page on different “fall” colors and cut out the leaves. Each day leading up to Thanksgiving break, have students write something they are thankful for that day and hang it up in the designated spot in your classroom. 

Everyone will love watching the gratitude space fill up with positive things, and students will begin to recognize things in their lives that they are thankful for. Happy November!

**This free printable resource is intended for personal or classroom use only. It is not to be sold, reposted, or claimed as your own.**

Thankful Leaves-2Download
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The Importance of Being Thankful- Ideas for the Classroom

Thanksgiving can be a tricky topic in school to learn about and celebrate, especially when we want to be respectful of those who may not celebrate the holiday.

At its very core, Thanksgiving is about being thankful, which is always a great topic and value to teach to all ages of children in schools. You don’t have to explicitly celebrate Thanksgiving in your classroom to celebrate and learn about being thankful.

We can start off by having a simple conversation about being thankful and what it means to us. We can talk about the different things we can be thankful for from everyday necessities like water, food, and shelter, to the bigger things like our gaming systems at home, bikes, etc. There are also things to be thankful for like friends, family, and teachers.

Ways we can incorporate thankfulness in the classroom-

A thankful tree art project- an empty tree trunk that eventually is filled with leaves that are written with what the students are thankful for.

A thankful turkey art project- similar to the thankful tree, but a more “Thanksgiving” approach if you’re wanting to head that way.

Write thank-you notes to teachers, janitors, administration, cafeteria workers, and more.

Take a few minutes of class each day to have the students tell everyone what they are thankful for.

Create thankful journals in class and write in them when possible.

Have students write what they are thankful for on a strip of paper and draw a few each day to read to the class.

Let the students highlight each other when they see the kindness their peers are showing.

When we are looking at the good, positive aspects of our lives, the good only gets better. That’s why promoting and talking about being thankful in our classrooms is only a net positive for everyone. It’s eye-opening for everyone to see what others value and are thankful for in their lives, and can remind us more about what we are thankful for in our lives.

Do you talk about being thankful with your students? What does this look like in your classroom?