In this episode of "The Happy Music Teacher," we delve into the transformative power of gratitude for elementary music teachers, both in their personal lives and within the classroom. I think it's important to emphasize the importance of gratitude, because you can link it to improved outlook, productivity, and overall happiness. I draw on my own experiences as an inherently happy person, exploring the impact of focusing on blessings and positive aspects of life. This episode serves as a guide for practicing gratitude through daily routines, family rituals, personal growth acknowledgment, and self-care practices.

I offer seven practical tips for personal gratitude, encouraging music teachers to maintain a gratitude journal, establish mindful morning routines, appreciate personal growth, cultivate family gratitude rituals, indulge in music appreciation moments, engage in volunteer work and acts of kindness, and prioritize self-care. Additionally, I provide five actionable ideas for bringing gratitude into the elementary music classroom, including incorporating thankful song lyrics, designing gratitude-themed lesson plans, creating gratitude bulletin boards, introducing gratitude-themed games, and encouraging gratitude reflections at the end of music classes. The episode serves as a comprehensive guide to fostering a culture of gratitude, promoting positive mindsets, and enhancing overall well-being for both music teachers and their students.

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What we talked about:

Gratitude Journal I like. Here's another one.

Insight Timer

Gratitude Games

Thankful song by The Juicebox

I'm Thankful by Kids Songs

Appreciation and Thankfulness by Jack Hartmann

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you an elementary music teacher who's frustrated and overwhelmed? I'm Jeanette Shorey, a happy music teacher who loves teaching every day. But it wasn't long ago I was in your shoes. Join me Wednesdays to help you find happy in your music classroom. I think I've been practicing gratitude. Most of my life.

I am a inherently happy person, and I think one of the reasons that I'm so happy is because I am constantly trying to focus on my blessings. I'm constantly trying to focus on the things in my life that are positive, and I think that that helps me a lot. And I I know there are a lot of people out there who don't do that and I think that this is one of my superpowers.

So I thought today we would take kind of a deep dive. into practicing gratitude. So before we get started with that, let me tell you a little bit about how gratitude can help you. It is a transformative force that can significantly enhance not only your outlook, but your productivity and your overall happiness.

cultivating gratitude is truly not difficult. It just means that you're acknowledging and appreciating the positive aspects of your life, even when there are challenges. So when you're focusing on what's going well, you can truly shift your perspective away from the negativity and stay in a more optimistic and positive mindset.

So having a positive outlook is. It's going to make you feel better. Practicing gratitude can have a profound impact on your mental well being. It helps you to be more resilient. It gives you a buffer against strength. And recognizing and expressing gratitude is not only going to increase your joy, but it's going to help you achieve everything you want to achieve.

both in your personal life and in your music classroom. Finding something to be grateful for every day can create a ripple effect. in all areas of your life. Need to get more done? Putting gratitude into daily practice has been linked to better productivity. You're more likely to find extra motivation in your daily tasks, which is going to lead to increased engagement and efficiency.

Feeling burnt out? Practicing gratitude is a powerful way to fight burnout because this practice helps you find a sense of purpose and fulfillment in your job and in your personal life. Having a more positive mental state can help you grow both personally and professionally. Plus it's also going to help you to build stronger connections with your colleagues and your students and the people in your personal life, your family and friends.

So what better way to think about and talk about gratitude than the week before Thanksgiving? And I know that it's sort of one of those times when people talk about it and then they just forget about it, or it goes on to the back burner, and it's not that it's not important to you. It's really just... It has to be a practice.

It. That's why it's called practicing gratitude. Just like practicing yoga. Just like practicing baseball. Just like practicing your instrument. You have to do it to get better at it. I have been practicing gratitude daily. Weekdays mostly on the weekend I don't do as good of a job because I don't tend to work out in the mornings on the week weekends But during the weekday, I have a gratitude journal and I fill out at least one thing I really try to focus on three things that I can be grateful for every single day So that is where I'm going to start.

I have seven tips for you personally as a person, as an elementary school music teacher, to help you when you're reflecting on gratitude. So a journal is really a perfect way to do this. So you, you can do your journal in your phone or on your iPad or on your laptop, or if you are a writing person, and I will tell you that.

I have lately gotten back into writing things out rather than typing things out, and I am finding that it focuses me, it settles me, and I remember more when I've written something out. So if it was me, I would find a gratitude journal, it find, you know, I mean, it could be as simple as, you know, a bunch of loose leaf paper that you staple together.

If you want something more, you know, fancy, then I will have some links in the show notes for a gratitude journal that I really like and some other ones as well, because everybody's going to work a little bit differently. So you start this personal gratitude journal and it's going to help you reflect on the positive aspects of your life.

both in the classroom and outside of the classroom. This is, this can be like personal achievements, moments of joy, funny things your students said, or things that they love about you that they tell you, Oh, I get all the time. Um, how beautiful I am and how beautiful my voice is. Those are my little ones, you know, and that's awesome because if you write those things down.

Later, when you're not feeling it, when you're kind of having a down day, that is the perfect time to bring those things out. You can also talk about gratitude for family, for friends, for I've been talking lately in my gratitude journal about my coaches and the people who influence me, my mentors, because you know, I run a business.

So these are all things that you can reflect on. No one is going to read it, so you get to be personally, just, you know, whatever it is on your mind that day. And if you can't think of anything, go backwards in your journal and find something. One thing every day is going to help you. Number two, a mindful morning routine.

So if you begin, this is how I do it, this is how I practice it, is In my phone, every day, I wake up at 5. I try to wake up at 5 a lot of times. It's not quite 5. If I put my phone across the room, then it's 5 o'clock. But otherwise, it might be, you know, 5 after, 10 after, quarter after, you know. But anyway, I wake up somewhere around 5 o'clock.

At 10 minutes after 5, I have an alarm set that tells me to, um, pray first and do my journal and praying not be may not be your deal, but it is something that I like to do first thing in the morning. But if you just go gratitude first, whatever it happens to be. So you have your mindful morning routine.

And if you begin every day expressing some gratitude for opportunities, experiences, people, a few minutes of meditation. There is an app called insight timer. And if you just look up gratitude, it will pop up with all kinds of meditations. This is a free app. I will also link this or just, you know, reflect on some positive intentions for the day.

Number three, appreciation for personal growth. So I also in my gratitude journal, I put my daily wins and my wins are from the day before because I do my gratitude and my praying first thing in the morning. So usually I haven't had any wins yet except for, Hey, I'm up and I'm vertical and things are good and I feel pretty good.

So But I will always do a win from the day before. So if you acknowledge your personal growth, your achievements, anything, it can be anything. I got up yesterday and I felt great and all of my classes went smoothly or I ate really well at breakfast time yesterday. Pick one thing and make it a win. It doesn't have to be a big deal.

Celebrate milestones, celebrate progress in your music teacher journey, in your family journey. Yesterday, I didn't fight with my kids at all, or yesterday, my partner and I had such an amazing day. Whatever it happens to be. Focus on that personal growth. Number four, family gratitude. Rituals are amazing.

When my kiddos were little, we would go around the table every evening when we were eating dinner and we always ate dinner together, even if we had to eat at some rando time because everybody had this or that going on after school, we would always eat together. I mean, I know that sometimes it's not possible, but whenever possible, we would eat together, and we would have one thing either that we were thankful for, or one thing great that happened, or something they loved in school.

I tried to ask them, Not what happened today, but something specific. What happened in Mrs. Gonzalez's class today that you really loved? Or what happened with a friend today? How did you connect with a friend? Whatever it happens to be. So if you establish like a ritual with your family that talking about what each person's thankful for or something amazing that happened to them, this is going to extend the culture of gratitude beyond Your school day, it's going to extend it into your children's lives, into your partner's lives, and it's going to be good for everybody, right?

Number five, music appreciation moments. We do not, I can't say we, I do not do enough. And I would bet that you don't do enough either of personal music appreciation, listening to favorite songs. playing your instrument, going to a concert. These are things that can be a source of personal joy and you can be thankful for them.

Maybe you join a choir or you join a community band or you sing with your church choir or whatever it happens to be. Find some times to appreciate and love music for what it is because you know, that's how we got into this in the first place, isn't it? Number six, volunteer work. I can tell you that volunteering is always a positive experience for me.

If you do volunteer outside of school, give back to the community, um, you know, service projects, anything you can do to show feelings of gratitude to feel feelings of gratitude and to connect with others and Yes, you're helping people and that's the best part of it, but it's also going to help you. Along with that, make sure you practice random acts of kindness.

If you see someone on the street that's looking kind of blah, give them a smile or say hello or good morning. Or I am a big believer in compliments. If I see somebody that is just rocking a top or a beautiful outfit, I'm always like, Oh my gosh, love your earrings, love your outfit. I don't care if I know them or not.

I have, I was in, um, where was I last week? I was someplace and I, I saw this woman who was older and I looked at her and I was like, Oh my gosh, she is like, Gorgeous, I mean, older lady, all put together, beautiful hair, and she had like this rockin body, and I was like I don't even know how she's doing that because she was quite obviously, like, at least pushing 50.

I would have said mid 50s just because of, you know, you can just tell the way somebody carries themselves, whatever, when you're in that age group, too. So, I, as I was walking past her, I said, I want to tell you, you look amazing, gorgeous, and I just walked away. I, I just was like, Inspired to, to talk to her and, and let her know how beautiful she looked.

Number seven. Self care practices are very important. What better way to be grateful for yourself, be grateful to yourself, be grateful to the person that you are than to take care of yourself. So, do things like exercising. If you have a hobby that really, really inspires you and brings you joy, if there are relaxation techniques that you want to practice, Any way that you can take care of yourself is going to bring you into a positive mindset, both for yourself in your personal life, for your family and for your kiddos at school.

So those are seven just for you. Now, I've also got five of them that you can practice in your classroom. Yes, you're welcome. Number one. Thankful song lyrics. So you can do something as simple as I'm grateful, I'm grateful for, and then they have to fill in something. I mean, it could be something really basic or you could find a poem about thankfulness and insert people's, thankful ideas.

So you can, you can, or you can talk about a song that has thankful lyrics in it and do a, um, and whole exploration, kind of a deep dive into analyzing the lyrics and connect with your kiddos and talk to them about positivity. And the cool thing about this is you start out talking to them and then you can ask them, what are you grateful for?

Number two, gratitude themed lesson plans. So maybe design a lesson plan that incorporates thankfulness. So, I mean, this is the perfect time to do it. I know that we're almost done with Thanksgiving, but this can be done anytime. It doesn't have to just be at Thanksgiving. So it could involve... teaching a song about thankfulness.

It could involve, um, sort of like exploring what thankfulness does for you, how you feel about it, how your students feel about it. It could be something like Mr. Dalgadio has Ottomus here and, um, at the end of his song, if you don't know the song, I will link to it in the show notes. I've been using it for the last two weeks with my kiddos because we learned the song first and then this week we're playing the instruments.

I mean it is a whole lesson plan that You don't really have to do a lot because he does the whole thing and he's got a lovely voice and it's just a wonderful song. At the end of it he says count all your blessings and then he's got one, two, three triangle rings and I thought wouldn't it be so cool for everybody to just do the count all your blessings part or just do like the autumn is here part and then count all your blessings and Students could come up with one word of something that they were grateful for.

And on those three, they could each say something they're grateful for. So it could be something as easy as that. You could also do, number three, a gratitude bulletin board. So, get a bulletin board together. Now, I am not a big believer in changing out your bulletin boards, but it could be something as simple as putting paper on the wall in the hallway and having everybody, um, as a sticky note at the end of class, something you're grateful for, and you just have them stick that on the bulletin board on the, on the paper.

Um, you know. whatever you wanted to do and you know, just have students and the little ones don't have to write a word. They could draw something or, you know, so it could be something like that. Number four, gratitude themed games. So I am going to link you to some gratitude themed games and it could be something that's a music lesson that involves like gratitude concepts could be Activities where students express appreciation for each other.

So for example, if you had like a clapping game and at the end of the clapping game, each one of them said something that they were grateful for or something that they really liked about the other person, it could be something like that. And number five. gratitude, reflections, incorporate moments of reflections at the end of the music class.

So if students can share one thing they're grateful for in relation to what's happened today, the musical experience today. So not only does it reinforce positivity and appreciation, but it also gives them a chance to kind of reflect on what happened that day. So let's go back through and do a quick review.

For yourself, number one, a gratitude journal. Number two, mindful morning routines. Number three, appreciation for your own personal growth. What are your wins that day? Number four, a family gratitude ritual. Number five, music appreciation moments for yourself to enjoy and get joy out of music. Number six, volunteer work or random acts of kindness.

And number seven, self care practices for your kiddos in your elementary music classroom. Number one, thankful song lyrics. Number two, a gratitude themed lesson plan. Number three, a gratitude bulletin board. Number four, gratitude themed games. And number five, gratitude reflections. If you got some great tips and tidbits that are going to help you become a happy music teacher I would be so thankful if you'd leave me a review.

Thanks so much for your time. Well, that's all I have for you today. But before I go, let me remind you, keep learning, keep growing, and keep being fabulous you.