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Turn your mindfulness moments into gratefulness greatness with gratitude activities for kids that can brighten up your classroom decor or spark meaningful reflection. Beyond just fun, they help build a stronger classroom community and bring valuable social-emotional learning (SEL) into your day.

Play gratitude games to spark positive thinking

Gratitude is more than having students write in journals or post positive reminders around the classroom. Make it a fun game where students can earn badges and reflect during mindful moments. These activities can be used during transitions, as morning bell ringers, or as ongoing classroom games throughout the year.

• Find Value in Everyday Items: Challenge students to explore the classroom and identify the purpose and usefulness of everyday items like pencils, markers, etc. This helps them appreciate the small things and recognize the people who contribute to their learning environment.
• Draft a Gratitude Map: Create a map of the school on a bulletin board and provide sticky notes for students to write down areas where they’ve experienced or expressed gratitude. 
• Turn Gratitude into an Adventure: Transform students into gratitude explorers. Challenge them to identify three people they are grateful for and take action by creating thank-you notes. You can award badges for completing these quests.
• Play Gratitude Detective: Have students write something specific they are grateful for about a classmate on a sticky note. Collect all the notes, mix them up, and then have students try to guess who each note is about. After guesses are made, read each note aloud and reveal the classmate it describes. It can also double as an icebreaker for kids. 

CBT Gratitude Game and Activities Thankful and Grateful SEL Counseling Lessons
By Whole Child Counseling
Grades: Not Grade Specific
Standards: CCSS SL.1.1, 1.1a, 1.1b

This PDF resource includes 30 scenarios offered in a digital format, 60 printable scenario cards, and a printable board game. You also have access to gratitude worksheets and rules for playing the game. 

Craft simple gratitude posters and activities

Express thankfulness through art and collaborative projects. These activities double as team-building activities for kids and create lively bulletin boards or displays.

• Create a Gratitude Comic: Divide students into groups and have each design a comic page showing a moment of gratitude in their school. Once complete, assemble the pages into a class gratitude comic book that tells a story of appreciation.
• Build a Gratitude Walk: Trace students’ footprints on butcher paper and have them write a moment they are thankful for inside their footprint. Students can decorate their footprints before adding them to a hallway or bulletin board to create a “Gratitude Walk.”
• Assemble a Gratitude Puzzle Collage: Assign each group a puzzle piece to decorate with things they are grateful for at school or home. Laminate the pieces and connect them into a large gratitude puzzle to display to show how each contribution fits in the big picture.

Free Gratitude Poster for Social Emotional Learning
By WholeHearted School Counseling
Grades: Not Grade Specific

Practice positivity with free gratitude posters that include writing prompts. They help students think of different areas to be grateful for, like what offers them strength or what comforts them. 

Gratitude Brochure K-2
By The Counseling Teacher Brandy
Grades: K-2nd

The trifold brochure offers students important facts about gratitude and what they should be grateful for. It also includes five bookmarks, a writing prompt poster, and a color poster that are great for entire classes or SEL circles. 

Join forces to spread gratitude together

Gratitude activities for kids help nurture positive connections and encourage positive peer relationships. You can also use collaborative gratitude activities as part of your SEL learning. Research shows that SEL is key to enhancing coping skills and student resilience. 

• Enhance Classroom Culture with a Gratitude Chain: Start a chain on your door or outside your room with one link that has something to be grateful for listed on it. Leave slips of paper and a pen. Allow students in your grade level and school to start adding their own links to see how big it can get. 
• Grow a Gratitude Garden: Create a bulletin board with blank flowers in your class or hallway. Encourage students to add words of thanks, encouragement, and gratitude to the flowers. Share the remarks with the class to boost them during the week. 
• Unlock Stories of Gratitude: Cut paper into the shape of large keys. Give students a gratitude writing prompt and have them write it on their key. Link the keys together with a ribbon “key chain.”

Gratitude Tree Story & Collaborative Project • Art Lesson • Writing Activity
By Expressive Monkey-The Art Teacher’s Little Helper
Grades: 2nd-5th
Standards: CCSSCCRA.W.9

Share a story with students about a gratitude tree through the 22-page PDF. Then have students decorate a leaf for part of a tree of gratitude. Teachers get instructions and a materials list. 

Positive Thinking Gratitude Activity for Improved Mindfulness and Self-Esteem
By Root and Sprout Learning
Grades: 3rd-8th

Challenge students with five days of gratitude and six activity sheets. The resource also includes a collaborative art project and a poster, along with simple instructions. 

Gratitude Writing Prompts Cards Journal Ways to Show Gratitude November Activity
By Tanya G. Marshall The Butterfly Teacher
Grades: Not Grade Specific

Make gratitude a lesson all on its own with daily gratefulness slips, 16 writing prompts, and printable sticky notes. The resource also includes a poster for display and a reflection page. There is also a Google Slides version. 

Gratitude Lesson and Craft | Winter Snow Globe Activity
By Carol Miller – Counseling Essentials
Grades: Not Grade Specific

Get crafty with gratitude activities for students with a fun snowglobe craft. This resource can work alongside winter and fall activities for kids and includes a lesson plan and instructions. 

Celebrate the season with gratitude activities for kids

Many students associate gratitude with holidays like Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. But gratitude activities for kids can be woven into any celebration, whether it’s the 100th day of school, the last day of the year, or even smaller classroom milestones. By tying gratitude to these events, teachers can turn ordinary celebrations into meaningful opportunities for students to reflect and share thankfulness in memorable ways.

• Pick a Gratitude Pumpkin: Instead of just painting pumpkins, have each student decorate a pumpkin with something they’re thankful for. Then, set up a “Pumpkin Patch” in the classroom or hallway. Blindfold students one at a time to select a pumpkin to take home, so they receive a surprise pumpkin from a classmate.
• Illuminate Gratitude Lanterns:  Students design paper lanterns with notes, drawings, or symbols of appreciation for school, classmates, or family. Hang the lanterns in windows, from the ceiling, or along a hallway.  
• Launch a Random Acts of Gratitude Challenge: Turn gratitude into an ongoing adventure with a 30-day classroom challenge. Each day, students complete a small, themed task, like leaving a thank-you note for a peer, giving a compliment, helping in the classroom, or sharing a positive memory. 

100th Day of School Activities | Gratitude Journal Lesson Craft Coloring Pages
By Shelly Rees
Grades: 4th-7th

This resource guides students in making a tri-fold brochure to showcase what they are thankful for. With 10 categories to explore, students can easily generate up to 100 gratitude ideas; perfect for a classroom gratitude jar or personalized placemat.

Valentine’s Day Gratitude Love Bug | Craftivity & Writing | Social Emotional
By Julia Erin
Grades: K-4th

The 26-page PDF includes step-by-step instructions with photos, a gratitude journal component, and a bulletin board banner. Students create a “Love Bug” while reflecting on people, places, and experiences they appreciate, making it a hands-on and heart-centered classroom activity.

End of Year Thank You Notes | Notes of Gratitude
By The Active Educator
Grades: PreK-5th

The end of the year leaves a lot to be grateful for, so channel end-of-the-year emotions into meaningful appreciation. Multiple thank-you note templates allow every student to feel seen and valued, giving them the opportunity to express gratitude to teachers, classmates, and staff. Add it to your last day of school activities. 

Build gratitude with outdoor gratitude activities for elementary students

Take gratitude outside to get kids moving, exploring, and reflecting on what they appreciate. Activities can range from scavenger hunts that encourage noticing the world around them to leaving small gratitude notes on playground equipment or around the schoolyard, turning outdoor play into mindful moments of thankfulness.

• Befriend Nature with Thank You Art: Take students outdoors with sidewalk chalk and let them decorate stones or pavement with gratitude words like “thankful,” “appreciate,” and “grateful.” 
• Leave Notes of Thanks:  Encourage students to think about why they are grateful for different pieces of playground equipment. Provide small buckets or containers with lids and have them write notes to at least four different pieces, explaining how each has positively impacted them. For example, how the swings helped them meet a best friend. Leave the notes for classmates to read during recess.
• Nurture a Nature Mandala:  Have students gather natural items like sticks, leaves, flowers, and stones, and collaboratively arrange them into a large mandala. Each item represents something they are thankful for. Students can add to the mandala over time, letting the artwork grow alongside their gratitude and fostering discussion about appreciation in the natural world.

Explore the benefits of teaching gratitude

Teaching students to be grateful is a valuable lesson that extends throughout the entire school year. Practicing gratitude not only helps students empathize with others but also encourages emotional regulation. It also helps to:

• Enhance Emotional Resilience: Regular reflection and gratitude activities build resilience and reduce stress.
• Strengthen Relationships: Students learn to recognize the contributions of others, fostering positive connections with peers.
• Boost Collaboration: Gratitude encourages awareness of classmates, creating a more cooperative and supportive classroom environment.
• Promote Self- and Social Awareness: Reflecting on gratitude helps students understand their own behavior and its impact on others, laying the groundwork for empathy.

Spark change with gratitude activities for kids from TPT

Teachers can guide students through fun, hands-on gratitude activities that help them reflect and connect with others. Make your lessons engaging by using elementary gratitude resources from TPT, and get creative with activities that inspire sharing, discussion, and reflection. Best of all, it’s a lesson you can weave into your classroom all year long.