A Bell-Ringer Idea: Calendar of Gratitude

On my list of Things That I Wish I Did Regularly are the following:

Journaling

Sketching

Gratitude-in'-ing ... or something

And I have MANY a reason why I've never really been able to stick with these habits (top of the list: laziness) UNTIL NOW...Allow me to introduce you to a little something I'm callin' my Calendar of Gratitude. My Cal-itude. My Gratit-dar. Okay, so it's a working title but hopefully you get the idea. Here's a lil video explaining it all:

Here's how it works: 

* You print out a calendar. If you google "free blank calendar", you'll find bunches. For example, here you go. 

* At the end of each day or perhaps the following, you sketch something you are grateful for: a beautiful sunset, fresh fruit, time with family, a cute cat, you get the idea.

* On the reverse, jot down your memory. 

and BOOM! you've just sketched, journaled and shown gratitude all in in under 10 minutes!

Not to mention, you now have a sweet little memory of your gratitude. I get so excited everytime I look at mine. Like happy little postage stamp-sized memories.

I'm also super into matcha right now. Anyone else? Currently I'm a matcha latte lady but hope to graduate up to straight matcha soon. 

Just a sentence or two in lieu of journaling. It does the trick!

Art teachers, I thought this might be great for those students who you see for a semester every day. I've never taught that age group so you'll have to forgive my ignorance...but I just thought it may be a great bell-ringer to get young artists in the mood and mindset. They could use their medium of choice...I have really enjoyed colored pencils for this. 

WANT MORE GRATITUDE PROJECT IDEAS?! 

I got you! Check out this FREE download for the elementary age students here. 

You can also find a lot of gratitude lessons in that post as well.