Activity of the Week – Montessori Gratitude Jar for Year-Round Gratitude

Montessori Gratitude Jar

I love gratitude activities – at Thanksgiving and all year round. Jocelyn Scotty wrote about a Montessori-inspired gratitude activity in an article at Suite101.com titled “How to Create a Montessori Gratitude Jar.” Directions are given in the article on how to prepare and present the gratitude jar in either a classroom or family setting.

Many families and classrooms have gratitude activities throughout November. The Montessori gratitude jar is a language-development and gratitude activity that’s meant to be used year-round. You only need a beautiful container, blank slips of paper, and a pencil to start a gratitude jar for written expressions of gratitude. The colors of paper can be changed throughout the year. Here’s a lovely way the jar can be opened on Thanksgiving and a new jar started the day after Thanksgiving:

On Thanksgiving or another special day, many families remove all the slips and read them aloud prior to sitting down to enjoy a meal together. Parents and children alike love to read through each slip and relive the memories of the past year together. The slips for the year are then glued or taped into a family memory journal and made into a keepsake. The Gratitude Jar starts anew the next day, ready for new feelings of thankfulness and gratitude to be recorded.

For more Thanksgiving activities, here are two more articles by Jocelyn Scotty called “Thanksgiving Montessori activities for young children” and “Montessori Thanksgiving Activities for Children.”

UPDATE: There are more ideas for gratitude activities in my post at Raising Figure Skaters: How to Help Your Kids Have an Attitude of Gratitude.

Does your family have a special gratitude activity for Thanksgiving or throughout the year?