Activity: Teachers provide stones for students or ask children to bring a couple of smooth stones to class to decorate. Students create daily gratitude journals and keep one personal gratitude stone in their desks to eventually take home. Students are assigned to give a stone to a family member, explaining its purpose. They are encouraged to follow up and ask the family member about their gratitudes. Materials Needed: Clean, smooth stones (fist-size or smaller) enough for 2 stones per student; ziplock bags in which to put the stones (optional); paint and small brushes or markers that can be used on a rock surface; a word wall with some vocabulary that fit this assignmentDirections: Explain: “Today we will decorate gratitude stones. You will decorate one for you, and one to give to someone else. When finished, the stones will dry and be kept here today at school in your desks. Tomorrow you can take one stone home to give to someone in your family after explaining why you’re giving it. The stone is to remind the receiver to remember to look for things for which to be grateful, like in the story we read. The other stone will be kept in your desk to remind you to take notice of things and people for which to be grateful here at school. For the next two weeks, we will spend a few minutes each day sharing our gratitudes and appreciations, sometimes in a class discussion and sometimes in pairs.” Provide a word wall (that can be added to) of expressions of gratitude, based on students’ and teacher’s ideas, and dedicate class time for the next two weeks to share gratitudes. Encourage students to be as specific as possible. For example, if a student shares: “I appreciate ____ because she’s nice to me,” encourage that student to explain more, by saying, “Tell us one thing she did that was nice.” An extension activity: “Appreciation Tag” - Students pick a number out of a hat. Numbers written are according to how many students are in the class. Your number decides who you will be appreciating at the end of the day: #1 will appreciate #2, #2 will appreciate #3, and so on. The final number will appreciate #1. Students have a whole day to think of an appreciation and they will share it at the end of the day. The teacher writes a prompt on the board and one by one students share according to the prompt. Prompt: I appreciate ______because ________. Wrap it up: Explain that the purpose of this activity is to learn more about sharing gratitudes and appreciations. We want to be more aware of all the good things that happen in our lives and in our world, because the more we feel grateful, the happier we will be. We want to get better at appreciating others, and we want to be appreciated more, don’t we? When we remember to tell others what we appreciate about them, they are happy and so are we.
Activity: Teachers provide stones for students or ask children to bring a couple of smooth stones to class to decorate. Students create daily gratitude journals and keep one personal gratitude stone in their desks to eventually take home. Students are assigned to give a stone to a family member, explaining its purpose. They are encouraged to follow up and ask the family member about their gratitudes. Materials Needed: Clean, smooth stones (fist-size or smaller) enough for 2 stones per student; ziplock bags in which to put the stones (optional); paint and small brushes or markers that can be used on a rock surface; a word wall with some vocabulary that fit this assignmentDirections: Explain: “Today we will decorate gratitude stones. You will decorate one for you, and one to give to someone else. When finished, the stones will dry and be kept here today at school in your desks. Tomorrow you can take one stone home to give to someone in your family after explaining why you’re giving it. The stone is to remind the receiver to remember to look for things for which to be grateful, like in the story we read. The other stone will be kept in your desk to remind you to take notice of things and people for which to be grateful here at school. For the next two weeks, we will spend a few minutes each day sharing our gratitudes and appreciations, sometimes in a class discussion and sometimes in pairs.” Provide a word wall (that can be added to) of expressions of gratitude, based on students’ and teacher’s ideas, and dedicate class time for the next two weeks to share gratitudes. Encourage students to be as specific as possible. For example, if a student shares: “I appreciate ____ because she’s nice to me,” encourage that student to explain more, by saying, “Tell us one thing she did that was nice.” An extension activity: “Appreciation Tag” - Students pick a number out of a hat. Numbers written are according to how many students are in the class. Your number decides who you will be appreciating at the end of the day: #1 will appreciate #2, #2 will appreciate #3, and so on. The final number will appreciate #1. Students have a whole day to think of an appreciation and they will share it at the end of the day. The teacher writes a prompt on the board and one by one students share according to the prompt. Prompt: I appreciate ______because ________. Wrap it up: Explain that the purpose of this activity is to learn more about sharing gratitudes and appreciations. We want to be more aware of all the good things that happen in our lives and in our world, because the more we feel grateful, the happier we will be. We want to get better at appreciating others, and we want to be appreciated more, don’t we? When we remember to tell others what we appreciate about them, they are happy and so are we.
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