A few weeks ago I was watching Kim Strobel’s “Science of Happiness” in the Strobel Summit and she said the number one top Happiness habit is GRATITUDE!
She also stated that we need to teach that and incorporate it into our classrooms.
If you read my earlier blog posts then you know that gratitude was one of my focuses this past school year. It started with the Friendsgiving and Gratitude celebration back in November but it did not stop there. Gratitude became my one word for 2019 and my students and I started a Gratitude movement in our classroom.
This gratitude movement began after the successful and emotional Gratitude celebration. (blog post in November) Then when we came back from Thanksgiving break my principal challenged the whole school community to 100 days of gratitude where we practice gratitude every day by sharing something we are grateful for.
So during our morning meeting that day I talked with my class about this challenge. I told them we are already ahead because we focused on gratitude during the month of November so lets keep going. So it became part of our morning routine and morning meeting.
Every day from the end of November until the end of May the students would come into class and write a gratitude note. They would place that note in a gratitude box and during morning meeting the leader of the day would pick out five notes and read them.
This became part of our classroom culture. Gratitude became embedded in all that we did. Students were excited about reading the notes and sharing gratitude with each other. If we missed a day or went off schedule, then they were sure to let me know.
The discussion of gratitude and the feelings that it created were seen and felt throughout the classroom. Students were kinder to each other and more appreciative of one another.
I knew that I needed to end the year with some sort of celebration that would highlight this gratitude movement that we spent so much time focusing on. So I decided to have a gratitude celebration. I asked my students to chose one important person in their life who they wanted to thank. Someone who made an impact and made them feel special and important. Some chose a parent, some, a sibling, some, an aunt or uncle and some, a friend. We chose a date and time and we sent each person a personal invitation to the celebration. We had them RSVP which allowed us to see who may not be able to make it in order to plan how this gratitude message would get to them. Students then worked on a letter for that person. I modeled it and set some guidelines- use three words to describe this person and write a paragraph for each word describing how this person exemplifies that word. Make sure you explain why you are so grateful for him or her.
Then I asked for speakers at the celebration -students who would like to share with the guests as to how this gratitude movement changed them or what it meant to them. I had about eight students who wanted to share.
Some of the responses were-
- “Being grateful makes you happier.”
- “Practicing gratitude everyday started my day off right.”
- “Gratitude helped me have a good day.”
- “Gratitude turns a bad day into a good day.”
So in the beginning of June we had our Gratitude celebration in the auditorium. When the celebration began, I walked the guests through our whole gratitude movement and how we ended up at this celebration day. Then my speakers shared their thoughts. This part really made an impact on me because I was able to see the actual result of this movement which started way back in October with a simple quote posted by Meredith Johnson during a Twitter chat. The thoughts from my students showed me that this movement made a much bigger impact than I ever would have imagined.
Next was the part that brought me to tears.
After we recapped our journey of gratitude I told the guests that they were all there for a very special reason. “Each child chose YOU to be here because you are important in their lives and they want to thank you.” I explained that the students were going to read their letters to them. When we began the preparations for this, I asked my students if any of them wanted to read their letter aloud in front of all the guests. Surprisingly, I had five students who wanted to take this risk. Five students who wanted to “cannonballin” ( @TaraMartinEDU). These five students one by one brought their guests up to the front to sit in a special chair and they read their letters to them. The audience was silent during this time and really focused on the interaction between the child and his or her guest. After all five students were done, I had four more students who decided at that moment that they also wanted to “cannonballin” and read their letters to their recipient in front of the guests. This whole time was priceless to me. Being able to see gratitude happening and coming from these little people was the highlight of my year. – the big success of the year!
After those students read their letters, then I gave all the other students a chance to meet with their guest in a private spot and read their letters to them. If a guest wasn’t there, then we had someone call them on the phone so the child could still have the opportunity to read the letter.
The second half of the celebration was for me to celebrate each and every child. I do this part every year in the last week of school. I honor each student with a certificate. On this certificate is the one word that I feel best describes the child. I honor each child by bringing them up to the front of the group and presenting them with the one word and telling a story about that child which exemplifies this one word. This year I added something. I took all the gratitude notes that each child wrote and made a gratitude jar for them. I explained that this jar can be used in many different ways- you can read your notes and remind yourself of what you are thankful for or you can continue to write notes and add them to the jar. My students and their parents loved the idea and were so grateful for the jar. I had one parent tell me that they were so impressed with all the time I took to make those jar for thirty students. Yes, it took time but it was so worth it to see the smile on each child’s face and the knowledge that each of them knew how grateful I was for them and how special that they all are.
You matter! You are important! You have a story to tell, so go out and tell it! That was our classroom mantra for the school year.
After the whole ceremony was over, one of my students came up to me and said, “Mrs. Gengler, I have the word that describes you- Kindhearted.”
These are the moments that matter. The ones that stick with you. I want my students to succeed academically but I also want them to walk away from my class being a little kinder, a little more humble and a little more grateful. I think that I accomplished that this year.
My only regret- I was so enthralled with the gratitude ceremony and being present in the moment that I failed to take any photos or videos.
But it is all in my heart- that is the best place for it.