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Gratitude Journal for Students

Help students count their blessings and enjoy school more.

Duration: 10 mins Frequency: 1x/day Difficulty: Casual
Gratitude Journal for Students

Time Required

5-10 minutes a day, daily for two weeks

How to Do It

In this exercise, you will guide students to complete the Gratitude Journal practice, where they make a list of things they feel grateful for.

To introduce the exercise, the following prompt may be helpful:

Grateful or thankful is the feeling we get when something good happens to us. Many of us feel grateful for family, friends, or pets. Feeling grateful could also come from a time when someone helped you. An example could be that you were having difficulty understanding your homework. You asked your older brother or sister or a parent to help you. They spent some time with you helping you to understand the assignment.

Think back over the past day and write down up to five things in your life that you are grateful or thankful for.

Research on this practice involved students in grades 6-7, but it can be adapted to other age groups.

When teaching about gratitude in a school setting, it is important to keep in mind that students differ in terms of culture, race, socioeconomic status, and religious background. This may mean that they also differ in the way they express and practice gratitude, including verbal expressions, gestures, acts of kindness or caring, rituals, or gifts. Welcoming discussion of these and other differences in the classroom will deepen students' understanding of gratitude.

In addition, the experience of gratitude may be challenging for children facing personal struggles, community suffering, or systemic inequality. Rather than simply encouraging them to “look on the bright side,” researchers Jeffrey Froh and Giacomo Bono suggest listening deeply, empathizing, and acknowledging their feelings. This can help them cultivate resilience, which—along with other qualities like self-compassion and hope—could help plant the seeds for gratefulness.

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