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A Day of Gratitude
Fall 2014, Grade 4
In the theme of thankfulness around the time of Thanksgiving, this lesson is meant to
demonstrate ways in which students can find a time for gratitude in their lives and a way in
which we as a class can think upon the things, people, feelings and aspects of our lives for
which we feel immense gratitude. Throughout this lesson students will be able to demonstrate
their own ability to reflect on moments of gratitude. In addition, students will be able to
demonstrate their ability to work together to create a lasting symbol of gratitude for our
classroom.
Lesson length: 60 minutes
Standards
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.4.B
Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a
word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.5
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word
meanings.
Lesson Objectives:
Students will be able to demonstrate their own ability to reflect on moments of gratitude.
Students will be able to demonstrate their ability to work together to create a lasting
symbol of gratitude for our classroom.
Learning Targets:
I can discuss and demonstrate the meaning of gratitude.
Basic Structure:
Introduction of song
Pre-assessment
Whole group discussion of gratitude meaning
Table group discussion
Group writing project: The Giving Tree
Sharing of leaves
Closing assessment
Hanging of the leaves
Return to seats in quiet transition

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Materials needed:
Green, yellow, gold, red, and brown construction paper (3 large sheets of each color)
Pencils
Pens
String, 50 pieces of twine/yarn, neutral in color, each 8 inches long
Single-hole hole punch (a few of them, ideally 5)
Scissors, 26 pairs
Drawings of leaves that students can free-hand onto their papers (this will be displayed
on the Elmo)
A couple of stencils printed out of leaves for each table
A handful of actual leaves for each table
35-50 safety pins
Printed out sentence frame sheets, 25 of them, hole-punched
Procedure of the lesson:
Teacher: Were going to start todays lesson with a song. Ill sing a line. After I sing the line, you
repeat it as best you can.
Sing, Make New Friends. Both verses.
Lets try to sing the first verse together this time. Sing 1st verse, repeat it.
Now Lets try the second verse. Sing the 2nd verse, repeat if needed.
Great job! Lets try to sing the whole song together this time. Sing it all together this time.
Repeat at least once.
Lets sing it together again, while we are singing, please walk carefully and find your place in
the circle. When the song is done, your bodies should be sitting in the circle in the back of the
room.
Teacher: Todays lesson is about gratitude. Does anyone have an idea what gratitude means?
Kids are given a chance to answer, a couple of suggestions. Even if correct predictions move
on.
Teacher: Ok, lets look at the word for a moment. Does gratitude remind you of any words
that you already know?
Students are given the chance to think of words that have similarities to gratitude.
Teacher: Every word comes from a family of words. Just like each of us. Many words come from
families that are in other languages. Gratitude comes from the French word for good-will,
gratitude. It came from this family in about 1560, does anyone know how long ago that was?
Students are given the chance to guess, if it leads to algorithm, great, if not after a few minutes of
thinking through it, help them think through the algorithm, writing it on the board. Work through
the subtraction problem, talking through it:
2014
-1560
454

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Thats a long time ago! But even a longer time ago than that, gratitude was taken from a
Latin word family. The word it is related to is gratus which looks a lot like a word we often
use in English, does anyone have an idea of what it might be?
Students are given the chance to try to think of the word with the goal of grateful or
gracious.
It came from the French word in 1450, does anyone have an idea how we can figure out how
many years ago that was?
Scaffold the students to find the algorithm again:
2014
-1450
564
Now lets think about the song that we were singing earlier, shall we sing it again? Sing it again.
What do you think it is about?
Scaffold discussion around the meaning in the song. Scaffold them to understand that the
meaning is deeper than just the words. It is about gratitude and being thankful for our friends.
What else can we be thankful for?
Discuss what else we can be thankful for. Students will likely find superficial things to be
thankful for such as videogames or tv. In these cases here are some prompts that might be
helpful.
-Many times we value things that we can buy in a store or that someone else buys for us. Lets
think of things, people, places that we are thankful for; things that we feel gratitude for.
-Imagine that you are going to go on a long trip away from home, a couple of day trip. Maybe
even like your fieldwork a couple of weeks ago. When you were away did you miss someone?
Your home? Things, people, places that mean so much to us are things that we are grateful for,
things that we are thankful for, things or people we feel gratitude toward.
Now students will transition to being back at their seats. Lets sing the song again. This time
when we are done singing it, please be back in your seats.
Sing song and transition back to seats. Once seated, continue.
At your desks is a stack of paper. If you look up at the elmo, I will put up some pictures of leaves.
I would like you to cut out at least one leaf out of the paper (Hold up an example.) Please be sure
it is about this big. Once you have finished cutting out the leaf out of the paper, see if your
neighbor needs a hand with theirs. After everyone at your table has leaves, please stack the
leftover paper in the middle of the desk. #3s please bring the paper up and make a neat pile by
the Elmo. How long do you think this will take, please show me with your fingers. Ok, about 7
minutes.
Once the papers are stacked, move on.
Please talk at your table about things that you are thankful for. Write them down on this sheet
(Pass out sentence frame sheets). Once you have each shared at least one, please choose one to

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write on one side of your leaf in nice, clear letters in a pen. When you write it, please write it in a
whole sentence, like the examples on your sentence frame sheet. (Give an example) You may
write another one of the other side of your leaf if youd like. How long do you think this will take
you? Show me with your fingers. (should be about 10 minutes) Once you have finished, please
hole punch your leaf like this (Show them). Once you are finished, please ask others at your
table if they would like help and offer to help them. (Wait a couple of minutes Before continuing,
giving them time to think through and work on the leaves). Once your entire table is ready,
please come back to the circle in the back of the room and sit quietly.
Once all of the students are in the circle, each student will share one of their thankfuls all the
way around the circle.
Great work crew! Can I have some volunteers to tell me what it means to be thankful?
Students are called on, about 3-4 of them. After this, students are given pieces of string and
shown how to tie the strings onto them. One at a time, students are asked to come up and we (the
sub and I) place safety pins on the end and hang them up on the tree. Once you have watched
your leaf get hung up, please return quietly to your seats and get out your S and R journals.
Grades will be observed regarding the HOWLS. Sentence frame sheets will be collected. A
higher score for Excellence is given for those students who have more than one full frame
written down.
Differentiation is applied in grading as well as in writing work in class.

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