Hello Blog 🙂
This week, my free inquiry project will focus on learning how gratitude practices can support student mindfulness, along with the associated benefits for well-being and learning. I will also be researching for effective resources and activities for integrating gratitude practices into educational settings!
Research about student gratitude practices:
To see how mindfulness in the form of gratitude practices benefits students, the Greater Good in Education, by the Greater Good in Science Centre, points to a key few benefits below:
- Improved emotional well-being and less negative psychological states
- Improved physical health and healthy eating habits
- Improved academic satisfaction and achievement
- Improved sense of community, social relationships, and social behaviors
Implementing Gratitude Practices into my Future Classrooms:
Upon searching for ways to implement gratitude practices into my classrooms I found Positive Psychology. Below I have highlighted a few suggestions for incorporating gratitude practices into classroom settings:
- Gratitude Tree – writing activity where students add paper leaves to class tree expressing their gratitude serving as a visual reminder to focus on the positives
- Gratitude Thank You Notes – writing activity where students write directly to someone important in their lives who they want to express their gratitude to
- Gratitude Walks – get students out in nature to promote mindfulness and ask students to look (not take) for things in nature they are grateful for
- Gratitude Scavenger Hunt – provide students a list of things they have to look for in their lives to be grateful for, have them take pictures of each item on the list
- Gratitude Ping-Pong – play pass and each time a student receives a ball they must share one thing they are grateful for before passing it to another student
These are just a few of the many resources I stumbled upon when searching the internet for ways to integrate gratitude practices into the classroom. Depending on where students are at with their writing skills, many of these activities can be modified to be drawing activities instead – pictures are worth a thousand words when starting writing. To promote an understanding of gratitude students can be given prompts for these activities but as they gain a deeper understanding of the concept of gratitude, students can use their creativity for many of these activities. Additionally, to promote social-emotional learning and create a sense of community and belonging, classroom sharing should also be prioritized with these activities if students feel confident to do so!
I have also linked a video on gratitude jars below – I plan to implement something similar to this into my own classroom. As a class we can decorate our jar together, adding to it each day, re-reading the notes and celebrating whenever we fill it up. Actively focusing and reflecting on the good in our lives deserves some celebrating 🙂
Stay tuned for next week’s mindful strategy!