Activity: Being Grateful

Being grateful helps us recognize our blessings, even on hard days. It’s important to express gratitude, especially to our Heavenly Father.

Play a game to discover all the good things in our lives.

• Divide the children into two teams.
• Give the first team a category, such as “Things you are grateful for at home.” Give the children 30 seconds to name or write down everything they are grateful for in that category. The team gets a point for every answer they give. When the time is up, the other team has a chance to earn points by adding up to 10 new things to the list.
• For the next round, give the second team a new category, such as “Things you are grateful for in nature.”
• Continue playing until one team reaches 50 points (or another predetermined number).

Consider the following additional categories for this game:

• People
• Animals
• Things at school
• Experiences
• Things in the gospel or at church

Invite the children to thank Heavenly Father in their prayers for the things they listed.

Please adapt activities as necessary to ensure all individuals are able to participate, belong, and contribute.

• Make and decorate gratitude journals. Encourage the children to write down at least one thing that happened that day that they’re thankful for. Invite them to add to the list every night before going to sleep and to thank Heavenly Father for these blessings in their prayers.
• Decorate a “thankful jar” the children can use with their families. Be sure to include instructions such as:
  • Put this jar somewhere everyone can see it, along with pieces of paper, pencils, and crayons. Encourage everyone to write down and put in the jar at least one thing they are grateful for each day. Sit down once a week as a family and read the slips of paper in the jar.
• Service idea: Help the children make thank-you cards for their parents, teachers, or other people who have helped them. Encourage the children to thank people who do nice things for them.

Encourage children to talk about how what they are learning can help them and others grow closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Discussions can take place before, during, or after the activity and should last just a few minutes. You could ask questions like the following:

• Why is it important to thank Heavenly Father for our blessings and the kind things others do for us? How do you show Heavenly Father that you are thankful for Him?
• How can being grateful help us in life?