Attitude of Gratitude...

"An attitude of gratitude makes everything better!" Straight from the mouth of one of my second grade students this week when doing a lesson on mindful smelling. Interesting, huh? We were talking about the smell of flowers and how that smell makes us feel. She blurted out, without raising her hand, that the smell makes her feel grateful...and then she proceeded to tell us about the attitude of gratitude. Love it! This was the best "blurt" all week. :)

It was especially timely to have this lesson and this particular student reminder because that very morning started off with a bang. Angry parent phone message, of course. That put me in a bit of a funk, so this reminder could not have come at a better time. Isn't it funny how life does that? It throws things our way right when we need them. I thought it also fitting that the above image was in my inbox that day too!

Now, let's get down and dirty about gratitude. Why do we forget to be grateful so easily? There are plenty of good-natured, kind-hearted and wonderful humans out there who OFTEN forget their gratitude pants! I am going to do my very best to be grateful more today than I was yesterday. And then, the next day even more. What if we all chose to do that? Oh, I can see a school climate movement in my imagination future!

Today I am grateful that our district plans a spring break. Next week I will be grateful to sleep past 4am each day! What are you grateful for?

The spirit of a child...

My little buddy and I shared a special treat today at the cafe in town. Since he met his attendance goal, he chose to have lunch at the cafe as a reward! A treat for me too! 

As we sat and talked, while waiting for our food, he asked several similar types of questions. It went something like this: "Would you rather be a stop sign or a store?" "Would you like to be a horse or another wild animal?" "Are you a car or a train?" And then this was followed by other simple statements like this: "Wanna play tic tac toe?" "My favorite food is shrimp." "I'm gonna have cake!" "I bet those people on the sidewalk are coming in here!" And then something like this: "My belly hurts. I think I slept too much." "I'm gonna eat everything." Followed by, "my family is gonna love the leftovers!" :)

As he sat and chattered away, I could not help but reflect on the simplicity of it all. What a treat to be reminded that it truly is the little things in this life that make our world. If we can see the beauty in the little things around us or even in simple questions, then we have really lived. I think we should all take a little kid to lunch once in a while to be reminded of this very fact. 

Here's to that next lunch date! 

When you're feeling too busy to reflect...