Teaching Children Gratitude {Book & Activity}

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I am thrilled to be participating in 21 Days of Gratitude with several amazing bloggers.

So, today, on this first rainy day of November, I am grateful for my HEALTH.

I want my children to be grateful and to embrace gratitude for a lifetime. J is 3.25 and Y is almost 2 but I feel strongly that you can never start too early teaching and talking about BIG life topics (See: Kids & Grief, Peace Education and Kids & Money). So, today we are reading a children's book called Gratitude Soup by Olivia Rosewood, a magical story that will warm you and your children.

A little girl creates a gratitude soup and she realizes that a feeling of gratitude is exponential. In other words, once you start thinking about all those things in life for which you are grateful, you think of more and more and more….the idea is contagious. Science supports the idea that the feeling of “gratitude” is actually good for our health. Amazing, right?

After we read the book J was really excited to make his own Gratitude Soup, completely unprompted by me. We like to make soup, real soup and pretend soup. This soup is an extension to that play. So I asked my son, “What are you grateful for?” He started by saying, “Trains, Dinosaurs…” then he moved to our family, “Y, Daddy, Nana…” then onto his school, “Ms. Bozkus, my new friends, Vienna…” It was magical and inspiring to hear him list off more and more of life's treasures. He is beginning to write but I suspect our soup will be a lot of drawing, coloring and a bit of writing assistance from me. I'm really looking forward to the activity this afternoon. Perfect for a rainy day.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that we inspired you to participate in 21 Days of Gratitude! Please leave a comment, I love hearing from you!

Marnie

Other children's books on the topic of gratitude that we love: