Gratitude
Earth Day highlights the importance of protecting our environment and promotes awareness of sustainable living. An Earth Day quiz can be an engaging educational tool in the classroom or with children, making learning about environmental conservation fun and interactive.
Suggestions:
- Use to stimulate conversations around Earth Day
- Use as an activity to discuss the environment and what we can do to help the planet.
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Answers:
Question 1: Correct Answer: A
Question 2: Correct Answer: A
Question 3: Correct Answer: B
Question 4: Correct Answer: B
Question 5: Correct Answer: B
Question 6: Correct Answer: C​
To celebrate Earth Day this month and to show our gratitude for the Earth, I created a page with activities and illustrations from our Earth Day series. The idea is to encourage children to plant a seed for Earth Day and to take a few moments to write and draw about their seed and the ways they try to take care of the earth.
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Suggestions:
- Plan to plant some seeds and have the children/students fill the form before planting the seed.
- Use as a family to celebrate Earth Day and plant new plants in your garden.
- Use as a conversation started.
- Use as needed.
The alphabet gratitude forces us to think beyond the obvious and use our creativity as we explore ALL that we can be grateful for. The cactus gratitude is centered around the idea of focus. How we can choose to focus on the thorns or the fact that a cactus can have thorns and flowers.
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Suggestions:
- Both can be used as a school assignment or as a family activity.
- Encourage creativity with the letter choices and thinking beyond the obvious.
- (cactus) Talk about how we can focus on different elements of the cactus.
- Discuss how gratitude impacts our lives.
- Color the image and write/draw what you are grateful for around the cactus.
These free printable activities were created to help encourage children to find gratitude in nature and to be able to seek and listen to the wisdom it shares with us.
Suggestions:
- Go outside in nature and observe nature. Discuss certain lessons that you can learn from nature and have each child write down or draw something that they can learn from nature.
- Decorate and color the Mandala and use as a relaxation and meditative activity.
- Discuss together what acknowledging and expressing gratitude feels like and how it can help us focus and take responsibility for our own happiness. Encourage the children to write or draw something that they find in different elements of nature.
Bookmarks for every occasion
A small gift we can give to ourselves or others.
Suggestions:
- Print a bookmark for each student or family member and/or add them to books and gifts.
- Discuss together what acknowledging and expressing gratitude feels like and how it can help us focus and take responsibility for our own happiness.
- Use as personal reminders of practicing gratitude daily.
A beautiful card for you to share what you are thankful for. Use as a gift, to add to a gift, to celebrate or mark a special moment, or any time you need remind someone that you are thankful for them.
Suggestions:
- Print a card for each student or family member and exchange them so that each person will write and receive one.
- Discuss together what acknowledging and expressing gratitude feels like and how it can help us focus and take responsibility for our own happiness.
- Use to mark special occasions or moments with gratitude.
When was the last time we looked at our body and didn’t whip up a list of things we wanted to change? Change is not a bad thing if it brings us closer to our true selves, but true and meaningful change comes from deeper and must come from a place of love and acceptance, of gratitude and peace.
What we focus on expands so we need to change our inner dialogue to match our desires. We need to already feel the emotions and already embody the change that we wish to see. How do you feel beautiful when you are not happy with the way you look?
We start with gratitude and contentment, with acceptance and love of every part of our body and how grateful we are for all we get to do and be because of it.
Suggestions:
- Find something to be grateful about for every part of your body.
- Use for yourself when you are feeling down to remind yourself of all that there is to be grateful.
- Keep as a reminder of how much there is to be grateful for.
- Use in schools and as part of therapy.
- Use with your family and children to discuss healthy body image.
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A simple way to start the habit of gratitude.
Find one or more things to be grateful for each day of the week.
Suggestions:
- Find one thing to be grateful for each day of the week.
- Print a copy for each student or family member.
- Discuss together what acknowledging and expressing gratitude feels like and how it can help us focus and take responsibility for our own happiness.
- Use for yourself when you are feeling down to remind yourself of all that there is to be grateful.
- Use to end an especially hard week.
- Use as needed.
An uplifting and fun activity for the classroom to remind each student (or teacher) that they are appreciated. Build the box and have everyone write something that they appreciate about the person.
Suggestions:
- Use at the end of the year as a gift for each student.
- Use as a birthday present and have family members from far away email and send in their notes.
- Use for a parent or friend.
- Use to remind someone that they are loved and appreciated.
- Makes a nice surprise for any occasion!
- Use for yourself when you are feeling down to remind yourself of all the wonderful qualities you possess.
- Use to celebrate a milestone.
- Use to remind someone that they are appreciated no matter what happens.
- Use as needed.
An activity to review the past year with grateful eyes or a new habit to start for the new year. Cut, assemble, reflect, feel, write and enjoy!
Suggestion:
- Use to finish the year and start a new tradition.
- Use to find gratitude after a difficult year.
- Use to remember that we have a lot to be grateful for.
A colorful and fun peacock to keep on your wall as a reminder of all the things to be grateful for.
Create your own collection of these lovely gratitude visuals to keep on your wall.
A fun activity to do with kids.
Suggestions:
- Print, color, decorate, and write words of gratitude in the feathers.
- Cut the feathers to assemble the tail.
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These can be used at any time of the year to share what we are grateful for.
Suggestions:
- Print, color, decorate, and write words of gratitude in the hearts.
- Use in the classroom for special occasions.
- Use as cards to share gratitude.
- Use to share love.
To the teachers, the amazing, the angel-like and the miraculous, I sincerity say THANK YOU!
Some simple cards to fill up with words of gratitude and share.
Suggestions:
- Use them to say thank you to teachers on special occasions or simply because it is worth saying.
- Use them to acknowledge the informal teachers and friends in our lives.
- Use them as needed.
Wonderful things happen all the time, yet we sometimes forget to notice them. Creating a jar of wonder and gratitude is a great way to finish the year as a family or as a class.
Suggestions:
- Find a simple mason jar and decorate it with your children or students. Make sure to decorate the tag that you wish to add on it. Personalize it with names, class numbers or details to make the project more specific or fun.
- Add to the jar all year long by creating special time for jar filling and read the papers together at the end of the year.
- If you are hosting a special family gathering, have everyone write one or two wonderful things that happened through the year, focusing on the little joys of family and delights of life. At the end of the evening, read it together to celebrate the end of the year.
- Create your own traditions of gratitude.
Other ideas for jars:
- Our family gratitude jars.
- The wonderful things we like about each other.
- Great things about the people in my class...
Some gratitude mandalas to color and fill.These can be used at home or at school, alone or as a family.
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A great way to talk about perspective with children. When something happens, teach them how to see both sides of a situation before choosing how they wish to interpret what is happening.
Suggestions:
- Sit down and come up with how a certain event or situation is filtered depending on each perspective.
- Use as a class activity to show how out attitude and mentality can impact or perspective and the choices we make.
- Relate the activity to gratitude and how we can always find something to be grateful about by focusing on what we have instead of what we are missing.
- Have a few printed and with them you can get your child to fill them up on their own.
A fun way to focus on all the good things we have in life.
Suggestions:
- Pass the carpet around and write what you are grateful for as a family.
- Add a square a day.
- Modify the activity to write down our personal strengths.
Gratitude, the seasoning of life.
Suggestions:
- When a child feels down, remind them that they are loved and that they are in control of their emotions. That the only way to feel better is to focus on things that make them happy.
- Add a gratitude minute to your evening meal or bedtime routine.
- Use as a way to introduce journal writing.
