This week we started to consider happiness and what makes us happy. Using the excellent ‘Action for Happiness’ organisation’s ten ‘keys to happiness’ we aim to focus on one ‘key’ each week, with the aim of equipping the children with some of the tools and information they might use, not just now, but going forward in their lives, to be proactive about their own well being and happiness.
The first key to happiness, which we considered this week, is ‘giving’. We started off by watching a short (just three minute) animated story called ‘Joy and Heron’, in which a dog named Joy on a fishing trip with ‘her human’, forms an unexpected friendship with a mother heron and discovers the happiness that comes from generously giving up something that is important (the worms needed for fishing) to help her new friend who needs to feed her young.
The children were very struck by the kindness shown by the dog and were excited to see that the heron also gave something in return — some fish. We were able to recognise together that both animals were happier as a result of helping one another. We went on to discuss a variety of ways we can ‘give’ to others, noting that giving does not have to involve material objects. We can give help, give our time, or simply give a smile to someone else.
The children were set the challenge of sharing a smile with as many people as possible throughout the day, and we took the opportunity to photograph each child’s smile to create a joyful collage of smiles for our classroom. We hope that seeing their smiles below might also give you some joy!
Wishing you a lovely extended (three day) weekend with the children. We look forward to seeing everyone again on Sunday,
The KG1 Team
