An Attitude of Gratitude
(Prepared for K-2^nd grades)

Purpose: To help my students develop gratitude as both an attitude and a verbal habit.

Hints:

1)     Let students know your need to hear words of encouragement and gratitude. They need to understand that teachers are people too!

2)     Share any personal stories of how looking on the bright side of things and hearing words of encouragement have impacted your life. After you share, they should be more willing to contribute discussion.

3)     Elementary students love stories. Tell stories of your personal life as well as of others you know who have been impacted by gratitude. They not only love stories, but remember them.

Introduction

Today we want to talk about the power of our words.

1. Words Can Hurt.

Have you ever heard the saying: “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”?

Discussion: What do you think of that saying? Do words sometimes hurt us? What kinds of things do people say that make you feel bad? (Teacher: add things that make you feel bad as well.)

Story: How many of you have seen the movie “E.T.”? What about Charlie’s Angels? The actress Drew Barrymore played in both of them, plus many more movies. She became a star at age seven, playing the little girl in E.T. At seven years she was the youngest person to ever host “Saturday Night Live.” You’d think she was living every child’s dream. She had talent, she was famous, but inside, the little star was hurting. Like a lot of us, she let the put-downs of others make her feel bad. When she did poorly on an assignment, the teacher called her stupid and said “she’d never amount to anything.” How do you think that made her feel? Drew said, “I wanted to crawl inside myself and die, but there was no escape. I vowed not to show any emotion. I sat there stone-faced, crying on the inside and completely humiliated.”

It wasn’t just her teacher’s fault. Students would pick on her and call her names, like “pig,” “fatso,” or saying that her nose looked like Porky Pig. She decided to try harder to fit in. One day, she got some surfer shorts with a spaceman design. She thought everyone would like it. Instead, they burst out laughing when she walked into the classroom, calling her a “Cosmic Cow.”

Rather than realizing that she was important and could make something of her life, she believed the mean words of the students. She said, “I just took their cutting remarks until eventually I let them completely undermine everything I knew to be true.” She ended up “feeling like the lowliest, homeliest, and dumbest creature at the place.” (Little Girl Lost, Drew Barrymore, Todd Gold, Pocket Books, NY, 1990.)

Have you ever felt like Drew felt? Why do you think students were so mean to her? How do you think she felt? Words can hurt, can’t they?

But words not only have the power to hurt; they also have the power to help. This lesson shows how we can change from hurting others with our words to helping others with our words.

2. Words can help.

Discussion: How can words “help” others? What kinds of things do others say that make you feel good? (Teacher: Add things that make you feel good as well, like when students compliment you or say positive things.)

Story: A school boy named Stevie was blind, which made it difficult for him to do many things at school. Yet, one day something happened to make Stevie feel good about himself. Someone lost a mouse in the schoolroom and they needed to find it. A teacher asked Stevie if he could help, since he had very good hearing. It was the first time someone had appreciated his unusual gift of hearing. How do you think this made Stevie feel? These small words of appreciation changed Stevie’s life. He felt good about his ability to hear well and began to develop his musical abilities. He became one of the great singers and songwriters of the 70s. His stage name was Stevie Wonder. Isn’t it amazing how kind, appreciative words can change people’s lives?

Activity: I want everyone on the left side of the room to draw a picture of Stevie’s face, with black glasses but happy because someone complimented his hearing. I’d like everyone on the right side of the room to draw a picture of Drew’s face, sad because people said mean things to her. (After they finish, put the pictures of Drew on one side of the front and pictures of Stevie on the other side of the front of the room.) Over the next week, keep pointing to the pictures and reminding students that they are either making people happy or sad with their words.

Game: MAKE ME SMILE

Everyone get a partner. Without touching, try to get the person to smile before the timer goes off (about 30 seconds). Now switch and try to get the other person to smile.

Debriefing: How did it feel to make someone smile? Isn’t it funny how making others happy makes us happy? That’s what we do when we encourage and show gratitude to others. Not only do we make others happy; we make ourselves happy.

Optional Skit (Prepared Ahead of Time):

“...Till I Met Someone With No Feet”

Purpose: To learn contentment by being thankful for what we have.

Setting: Students coming into class from P.E., before their teacher arrives.

Drama

Tara (to Darin, seated in front of her): “I CANNOT BELIEVE that my parents won’t buy me some decent tennis shoes. It’s SOOO embarrassing to run in K-Mart specials when everyone else has $100.00 name brands.”

Darin: “They’re not so bad, really. Ask Jade.”

Tara (suddenly realizing that Jade, in a wheelchair without feet [make this illusion by tucking her feet under the wheelchair, with a cloth over them, and a bandaged stub hanging from each knee, which appear to be the end of each leg] was overhearing the conversation.): “Sorry Jade. I’m sure that my whining sounds pretty silly to you. Here I am, complaining that I have no shoes, and you have no feet. Yet, you seem happy. How do you handle it?”

Jade: “After my accident, I got bitter. But then I went for rehab at the hospital, and met a guy who was paralyzed from the neck down. His head was all he could move. But strangely, he was just glad to be alive, and enjoyed painting pictures with his brush held between his teeth like this (she puts her pencil in her mouth and tries to draw on a paper). I realized that I was pretty lucky to be able to use my arms.”

Tara : (Thoughtfully) “I guess we’ve got it made. When I start to complain about what I don’t have, I’m gonna stop and be thankful for what I do have. (Looking down at her shoes) These shoes aren’t so bad after all.”

Narrator

Activity: What’s there to be thankful for?

Put two columns on the blackboard. (Even though many can’t read, they can see how long each list becomes.) Write at the top of one column, “Things that are Going Wrong.” On the top of the other column, write “Things that are Going Right.”

Let’s write all the things that we can think of that are going wrong—things we don’t like about life. (Let students share. You might have to share a couple of ideas to get the ball rolling, like “I’ve got a headache or don’t feel good.” “Sometimes I don’t like lunch.” “Somebody on the bus bothers me.”)

Now, let’s think of all the things that are going right—things we like about life. (Keep prompting them with things they might not normally think about, like that their feet are working, that their eyes aren’t hurting, that the temperature in the room is good, that we have seats to sit in, etc. Keep going as long as they can.)

Let’s look at these two lists. Do we have more to be thankful for, or more to be upset about? Why do you think many people only think about the bad things, when they have so many good things to be thankful for?

Assignment: During the next week, I want to give out some special stars to those who say “thanks,” to those who compliment others, and to all who say nice things to others. At the beginning of each day, I want you to tell me what you said nice to someone else. During the school day and at home, try to catch someone doing something right and compliment them for it. (For example, you could compliment the bus driver, the lunchroom ladies or the recess monitor.) At the end of each day, I’ll award stars to those who did this during the day. (If everyone says they said positive things, try to give everyone a star as a reinforcement.)