17 Gratitude Activities for Kids to Encourage Thankfulness

Do you ever feel like you’re always preaching gratitude to your kids, but you aren’t sure how to actually demonstrate it? Gratitude is an essential value children need to learn at a young age, but how do you teach it? Here are 17 fun gratitude activities for kids to encourage them to develop thankfulness.

My kids have grown up in a world of instant gratification. They don’t have to wait for much of anything. On-demand, instant, overnight, and rush are all parts of their basic vocabularies.

Having everything at their fingertips tends to breed discontent. (That’s true for adults, too.) But it’s our job as moms to help them learn gratitude as children. And we need to do more than just tell them how to practice gratitude.

That’s where gratitude activities come in.

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Gratitude Activities for Kids

Read Books about Gratitude

Reading has so many great benefits–one of which is giving you and your child time to snuggle up and be together.

Use this family time as a time to read books about being thankful, and start a conversation about gratitude.

There are so many amazing books that will teach your child about being thankful. Here are a few favorites:

There are so many amazing books that will teach your child about being thankful. Reading books brings so many great benefits, and your child will love the chance to snuggle up and read books with you!

Make a Gratitude Chain or Tree

Gratitude chains or trees are fun and easy crafts to help your child share what they are grateful for. Crafts are a great hands-on way to teach kids how to practice gratitude.

Make a chain or leaves from colorful paper. Each day of November (or whatever time your family is learning about gratitude) they can write something they’re grateful for.

You may want to make your chain stretch around the room, or cover a whole tree with paper leaves. The more you’re grateful for, the bigger your craft will become!

Start a Dinner Table Gratitude Tradition

Make it a tradition to go around the dinner table each night and share one thing you were thankful for about today. It can be big or small, and mom and dad should also get in on the game.

Not only will this help kids find things to be grateful for, but it will also show them there is always something good about their day. Over time, you might find your family purposely looking for good things during the day.

Having a daily gratitude tradition will also keep your family close as you talk and share about your days while eating dinner.

Gratitude Competitions

There are so many fun ways to have gratitude competitions. You can see who can write down the most things they are grateful for in one minute, or see who can find the funniest thing to be grateful for.

Hang a whiteboard on the fridge, and encourage everyone to write something by dinner time. You can also see how many you can name throughout your day. Make these competitions fun and light, nothing too serious.

Write Thank You Notes

In our digital age, writing thank-you notes is a lost art. But you can teach your child to write thank you notes from an early age. Plus, writing activities are a great way to improve reading and writing skills, that will help kids throughout their lives.

Younger children can paint or draw cards to help build creativity. As they get older they can copy simple messages which will improve handwriting. Eventually, they can write heartfelt, meaningful thank you notes on their own.

Writing thank you notes will teach gratitude and manners to your child as they learn they need to share their gratitude with others.

Rainbow Kind of Days

Bad days happen for all of us, but they’re sometimes harder for kids to deal with. They need to know that bad days happen, but we can turn them around.

Help them have a “rainbow kind of day.” Use this phrase when you have a bad day. Talk about the day, and struggles you went through. Then, tell your child about your rainbow–something good that happened.

Remind them that rainbows only come after the rain. Sometimes rain is nasty and even scary. But in the end, there often comes a beautiful rainbow.

Have a Grateful Bedtime Routine

If you want to make gratitude a habit for your child, include it in your bedtime routine. Every night before bed, have them share what they were grateful for that day.

Make it a special time when the whole family gets involved. If you have family devotions or family prayer, encourage your kids to thank God for something.

They may say the same thing every night, or they may get creative and come up with different things. Either way, they’re learning to practice thankfulness every day.

Create a Gratitude Jar

Find an empty jar and have your child decorate it. Make it pretty or fun–whatever it takes to encourage your family to use it. Keep some paper and a pencil nearby so it’s easy to use.

Then, write little notes of things you’re grateful for every day. Put the notes in the jar, and when it is full, empty it and read through everything you wrote!

This is a great practice to do during the month of November and read your notes on Thanksgiving Day.

Write in a Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is a great way to teach your child about being thankful. Get them a journal, or have them make their own. Then try to make it a habit to write in their journals every single day.

This will create a habit your kids can keep forever, as well as show them the fun and importance of journaling.

Thankful for Senses

Involving all the senses is always a great way to teach something! You can do this in so many different ways.

You can create a sensory bin filled with things your child loves and have them explore and be thankful for each item. This is especially great for younger kids.

Or you can ask your child something they love for each of their senses:

Something they love to taste
Something they love to touch
Something they love to smell
A sound they love to hear
Something they love to see

Have them gather the items together to have a gratitude visual to share. This will also show you what their favorite items are you may not have known before!

Play Gratitude Bingo

Gratitude Bingo is not a daily activity but rather a week or month-long event that keeps thankfulness in the front of everyone’s minds. Give your child a bingo card with gratitude prompts inside each square.

You can make your own or get one online. Some square examples include:

Tell someone why you are grateful for them
Give a compliment to someone today
Say please and thank you 10x today
Write in your gratitude journal

When your child gets bingo, give them a prize. Make the blackout prize super special to help them learn how fun it is to be thankful for everything we have.

Participating in a long-term activity can help make gratitude a habit your whole family practices.

Make a Thankful Pumpkin

Instead of carving your pumpkin, write out all the things your entire family is grateful for. Try to fill the pumpkin with your writing!

To make it last longer, buy some faux pumpkins that you can make a part of your fall or Thanksgiving decor. You can give everyone their own small pumpkin, or keep the extras for next year.

Just keep adding to your collection. (If you happen to live in Florida, my friend Hanny has this great list of Orlando pumpkin patches you need to visit!)

Go on a Gratitude Scavenger Hunt

Children love scavenger hunts! You can make this as easy or as hard as your child needs depending on their age or abilities.

Here are a couple of ideas:

Make hints about things you are grateful for to have them look for until they find the prize.
Let them make their own scavenger hunt and give them prompts. For example, “something you’re grateful to wear” or “something you’re grateful to eat.”
Download and print a scavenger hunt online, and talk about all the stuff you find.

If you’re looking for something fun to do after your big Thanksgiving dinner, a scavenger hunt is a fun tradition you can start this year.

Grateful Photo Challenge

Most kids really love to take pictures, so if they’re old enough, have them go on a photo challenge! They can use your phone or a kid’s camera.

You can choose to give them a list of things to take pictures of or let them find 20 things they are grateful for to take a picture of. You might even make a little photo book for them, or help them make a collage of their pictures.

Drawing or Painting

While it may seem so simple, children love a chance to draw or paint freely. Don’t lead this activity; let your child draw whatever comes to their mind.

Process art is much more beneficial than having your child copy a cute turkey you saw on Pinterest.

Let your kids’ creativity shine here. Instead of limiting them to crayons or markers, let them use something fun like paint or chalk. If your kids are a little older, you might even buy a cheap canvas for their artwork.

Be sure to hang up your child’s artwork and share how thankful you are for it!

Go On a Gratitude Walk

Many children have a lot of energy that they love to use, so go on a gratitude walk! This can be a simple nature walk, but talk about things you see, hear, smell, and touch that you are grateful for during your walk.

It’s even better if you’re able to involve the whole family.

Have a Gratitude Challenge

Involve your whole family in a month-long gratitude challenge. Have a daily prompt where each family member shares something they’re grateful for in a certain category.

It might be a person, your favorite book, something about your church, or something good that happened. When everyone takes a part, kids can see you leading by example when it comes to being grateful for everything in life.

These 17 gratitude activities will help your child learn this important skill in a fun way that will stick with them! Learning through play is more beneficial and lots more fun for kids of all ages! What other ways to you like to teach your child about gratitude?