My school is building on its wellness program by incorporating tenets from Character Lab and Positive Education. I am in the process of creating web pages for each of the strengths documented and researched by Character Lab. One of our approaches to supporting wellness will be through the regular curriculum taught by the classroom teacher. We will be using the curriculum collaboration process for integration opportunities. I will be posting insights during the coming school year as we progress.

Here is the write-up for the character strength of gratitude.

These are offerings of standalone lesson ideas and strategies as opposed to our other approach of integration through the super units.

Definition: Appreciating what you have been given. I am thankful.

What it Looks Like and How to Encourage:

  • Having a feeling of abundance
  • Thankfulness
  • Appreciation
  • Celebration
  • Developing and using a self-talk algorithm to be mindful of the moment
  • Promoting a language around gratitude and well-being
  • Situational analysis (Teachable Moments)

 

From Character Lab (CL)…

Model it. Talk about the good things that happen to you: “I love this gorgeous spring day!” Reframe difficulties by highlighting positive aspects: “Work has been stressful lately, but I’m grateful that my boss trusts me with important responsibilities.”

Celebrate it. Acknowledge when someone demonstrates gratitude: “It makes me feel really great when you thank me for what I am doing.” Display thank you notes you’ve received where others can see them. Post Three Good Things on social media.”

Enable it. Keep stationery handy for writing thank you notes. At dinner, make it a habit to begin by sharing one good thing that happened that day. Establish a birthday ritual to write notes of appreciation.”

 

Teacher Strategies to Personally Strengthen Their Gratitude:

  • Start with the CL construct of modeling, celebrate, and enable, to develop some strategies.
  • Under “enable” we will come up with a listing of habit formation strategies.
  • Use WOOP to start the strengthening process.

 

Character Lab Gratitude Teaching Strategies: How to offer age-appropriate versions of the strategies?

  • Journal: The teacher provided prompts and ongoing writing about what one is grateful for.
  • WOOP: Set goals, realize obstacles, and put plans in place to strengthen this strength.
  • WOOP App: Android | IOS
  • 3 Good Things: “At the end of each day, write down three things that went well for you and why they went well.” (Character Lab)
  • Gratitude Letter: “Write a letter to a person who has positively influenced your life. This could be a teacher, relative, mentor, or coach. If you can, read your letter aloud to the person you chose.” (Character Lab)

Other Gratitude Teaching Strategies: The ideas can be adapted into “junior versions” for our younger learners.

  • Badging – Use an online badging system with strengths as categories.
  • Characters in Reading – Use questions and language around individuals and their strengths in action or inaction.
  • Compliments Project – This also connects to kindness.
  • Designate a team member as the Wellness@SSIS Lead. This person views all activities through a wellness lens looking for ways to incorporate the strengths into the learning.
  • Game Cards – There are multiple pathways to follow in creating your cards to employ them in various activities. A starter set could be your definition cards.
  • Gratitude Wall(s) – Whiteboards in hallways and the possibility of having a wall in the atrium area. The wall could be designated for wellness use during the year and we could use it to advocate, communicate and provide a public space for education and interaction around wellness.
  • Growing Gratitude from Six Seconds: Adapt this lesson to your needs.
  • Guiding Questions – Develop lessons around your version of “what is gratitude and how can I strengthen it?”.
  • Living the Strength – Use our language around wellness to guide your development of experiences and structures for students to construct their understanding of the strength and how to “live it”.
  • Mindfulness – Use a variety of strategies to increase mindfulness to include awareness of one’s fortunate experiences.
  • Mind Maps – Students over time build out their understanding of the strength of making connections to prior stems and nodes. Can be done through apps, websites, and/or paper.
  • Personal Planner
  • Portfolios – Portfolios can be leveraged to support the delivery of wellness (healthy living) guidelines, learning activities, reflection opportunities, goal-setting, etc. Parents can be prompted to interact with their child’s portfolio wellness posts that engage them in their child’s wellness and potentially their own. Students post entries about their living the strength. Use strengths in tagging system when students add artifacts and reflections. ex. #gratitude.
  • Role Plays – Teacher and student-created scenarios.
  • Strength Brainstorm Questions: Adapt the list to help your students make connections in their learning.
  • Strength Chart – Teachers have lots of ways to bring strengths into the language and culture of their classrooms. Patrick connects to the SSIS core values by having the names of students on small sticky labels in using the core values poster. He sticks the student’s name by the value on the chart in the following ways that are adapted here for the strengths. One technique is for students who want the class to support his/her effort to grow a strength to have his/her name placed beside the designated strength(s). A second strategy is for teachers to verbally highlight students who are applying the strength at the moment in class. The teacher then puts the student’s name by the strength on the chart. Guiding Questions – Develop lessons around your version of “what is gratitude and how can I strengthen it?”
  • Superhero Creation – Challenge your students to create a superhero who maximizes this strength. One approach is to have your students draw a picture of the character with a biography that describes how the superhero uses the strength in his/her life. You can provide categories such as physical, intellectual (thinking), emotional, and social as to how the superhero demonstrates the strength. This activity could take the form of playing cards that students then create games around.
  • Wellness Time – Like Google’s 20% time, have wellness-oriented independent time learning time for this strength. The students set a goal, design a plan and produce some type of finishing artifact/project to make their learning visible with a reflection component.
  • Other possibilities – Gratitude Superhero marketing, Student-created videos highlighting gratitude stories, building mindful practices into class cultures, Look-Hear-Feel routine to support mindfulness to connect to gratitude, CAS student-produced age-appropriate videos answering the question “What is gratitude?”, older student buddies and their ES partners from time to time share personal gratitude stories, incorporate into co-curricular activities like Project X, field trips, ASAs, assemblies, etc.

 

Strength Breaks: Like brain breaks but for strengths.

  • Gratitude Now! – Stop, Be Mindful and Share. Students pause, breathe,e and think about what they have gratitude for. This break will become more effective the more students have lessons and experiences of mindfulness.
  • 3 Good Things – A good fit for the end of the day to share three good things students are grateful for.

 

Grade(s) Specific Teaching Strategies: The following ideas are offered as jumping-off points for teachers to build from and adapt to their needs. We will have a mechanism in place for you to share your adaptations and full lessons with our learning community.

EC-K>

  • Storybook readings, digital media, and share time by teachers and students to build understanding.
  • 3 Good Things- Possibly change to “1 Good Thing” with differentiation for some students to offer more examples. They draw a picture and the teacher decides whether to have shared and if so how. Possibilities> Weekly circle time to share drawings, with a partner, with a table, etc.
  • Gratitude wall in each classroom.

1-3>

  • Grades 1-2> possibly doing some storybook readings and use of digital media. Eventually could lead to students writing their own storybooks that involve gratitude.
  • Weekly Gratitude SeeSaw Journal post – will need to develop prompt and potential categories for students to draw a picture of and/or take a photo of their examples of gratitude. They then voice-record their response.
  • Work with students’ ideas to learn and strengthen their gratitude.
  • Three Good Things – At the end of each day, write down three things that went well for you and why they went well. Drawing pictures can support the reflection and make thinking visible.
  • Gratitude wall in each classroom.

4-5>

  • Journal – Good Doc or paper version. Use the prompts on p. 6 of the Gratitude PDF. In time work with students to create new prompts. Could be a section of the portfolio.
  • Work with students’ ideas to learn and strengthen their gratitude.
  • Three Good Things: At the end of each day, write down three things that went well for you and why they went well. Drawing pictures can support the reflection and make thinking visible.
  • Gratitude wall (and possibly a virtual one via Padlet) in each classroom. Use for personal posts and students might also pull from news stories where people share their gratitude.

Assessment: To be developed.

Teaching Tools:

  • Apps- Padlet,
  • Art supplies for the drawing of pictures
  • Library Storybooks
  • Media
  • Mobile Whiteboards
  • Older students use a paper notebook, Google Docs, or another digital journaling tool (e.g., blog, portfolio, etc.)
  • SeeSaw

Learning About Gratitude:

Websites>

https://characterlab.org/playbooks/gratitude/

Books>

 

Parent Engagement:

  • Ask someone to video record the strength in action and publicize the efforts via social media (#———-) and the school website.
  • Family Tree of Strengths: Provide parents with definitions and what strengths can look like in action. Provide a family tree graphic organizer with space for names and the individual’s main strengths. Offer prompts to guide parents to explain how family members and earlier generations lived specific strengths.
  • Teachers offer ideas for parents to weekly share with their children examples of their experiencing gratitude.
  • Use our various communication pathways to inform parents of their children being involved in strengthening their gratitude.
  • VIA Strengths Survey: Send parents information about the strengths and the English language Strengths Survey that they can take. The results can offer a discussion starting point for families. Teachers send specific reminders to have family talks around the gratitude reflection products the students produce.

Research References

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