Bright Idea: Happy Journals

Time for a bright idea for teaching your students to be happier!



A few years back, I worked with a student who was constantly negative. She would constantly tell me everything that had gone wrong with every day, and her very self-centered worldview made it hard for everything not to seem like some kind of personal injustice.

I worked with this student after school, and thankfully her parents understood that their child needed emotional support as much as she needed academic support.

I wanted to encourage some positive self-talk and giving the student an opportunity to reflect on the positive things going on in her day, so we created a Happy Journal!


I gave her complete control over the cover. I drew “Happy Journal” on the cover to get her started, but otherwise I let her fill in pictures and words of things she loved, and a few stickers too. I wanted it to feel like HERS- and show all the things that made her happy.

On the inside cover, I wrote her a personal note about the purpose of the journal. I’m an optimist at heart, and I truly believe in the power of forcing yourself to TRY to think positively, even when you don’t feel like it! Looking for the blessings is a powerful thing.
Every day, I asked her to write 3 positive things about her day or about life. Occasionally, she could even think of more.

Having a reason to look for those good things (and meeting with someone to stay accountable) made a huge difference in this child.

I wasn’t picky about spelling, punctuation, or even complete sentences- this was all about taking the time to notice good things in life. It also helped me (and her parents) to see some of the things that helped her mood.
After doing this as a sort of intervention for one student, I think that it would make a great end-of-the-day activity for ALL of my kids after they pack up for the day.
A Happy Journal made a huge difference for this girl. Hopefully, it’s an idea that could come in handy in your classroom, too!  : )
If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to check out another Bright Ideas post on how I organize progress monitoring data and anecdotal notes. Please consider following me on Facebook, Instagram, and Bloglovin!
You can read lots more Bright Ideas for your classroom here. Be sure to check the grade level and topics!

An InLinkz Link-up

"Old Fashioned Day" and Teaching Life Skills

This morning, I arrived at school, after not going in over Spring Break. Due to ridiculous amounts of sleepy this morning, I only had about half an hour before the kids arrived... And right about then, I realized that my kids would be bringing in leprechaun traps. I not only needed to make sure I had room for 22 projects, but I also knew at least a couple of parents would be coming in with the projects, so I had to straighten up a bit.

I also had to adjust my plans a little. Monday mornings are usually quite simple. Someone on my team found these terrific SmartBoard files with just about all of the reading series (Treasures) lessons for the week, and Monday is usually a day of introducing new vocab, spelling, background knowledge, and a skill.

Well, unfortunately, we got word that last night's power outage had knocked out our servers. No access to anything on the server, the Internet, email, or even printing. So my plans of "Oh, I'll just print this out tomorrow from Google Docs," or "Oh, I'll just pull that up on Pinterest in the morning," just couldn't happen. The principal dubbed it "Old Fashioned Day," and we just made do until it all came back.

As a note, I could've done a day without technology... It's just that a little notice would've helped! Oh well- we made it work! And surprisingly, the kids were pretty good, even on the day back after break.

Anyway... I'm slowly but surely showing you bits of my classroom.

This particular item is simple. My mom picked it up at a garage sale for a couple of dollars (yes, really). At the beginning of the year, I put it up to cover a blank section of the wall, but I eventually came up with a use for it!

Our administration chooses a life skill each month and the principal introduces it with a read-aloud. I write the month's life skill above the pocket chart, and I keep frogs with each student's name on them. As I see students especially using that life skill, we put the frogs on the chart. The goal is to get every frog on the chart, and in a month, it can usually happen!

(Can you tell I like frogs a little bit? :)

Anyway, that's all there is to it. Just a super-easy way to encourage using life skills! How do you teach life skills in your room?