It's an exciting time of year for adults and children alike. It's holiday time!
We have focused on Character Education for the past eight weeks and learned about the traits citizenship, respect, fairness, truthfulness, responsibility, and caring. We have used morning journal time to reflect, focus, and write about each of these character traits, and tried to highlight and recognize those choices that reflect positive character traits. Since it's holiday time and a time of gift-giving and receiving, we are going to shift our focus to gratitude. We will use our journals as gratitude journals until Christmas break. We will explore the depth of what gratitude means by discussing, reflecting, and writing. Gratitude plays an important role in healthy social behaviors; it changes negative attitudes into positive ones and makes us happier.
Here are a few great articles about gratitude:
How Gratitude Can Change Your Life http://www.thechangeblog.com/gratitude/
Is Gratitude the Most Important Emotion of All? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/30/gratitude-most-important-emotion
11 Tips for Instilling True Gratitude in Your Kids http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-reiser/11-tips-for-instilling-true-gratitude-in-your-kids_b_4708019.html
12 Tips for Teaching Children Gratitude https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/Community/Pages/12-Tips-for-Teaching-Children-Gratitude.aspx
Sometimes it's difficult to focus during the bustling holidays, but we will have plenty of fun activities to balance and integrate learning during this time. I'm looking forward to the next several weeks of fun and learning!
Ms. Jessica
