21st September Pause the World Day; World Gratitude Day

Pause the World Day is a day to turn off all the extra noise in our lives that raises our blood pressure and stresses us out. On this day, the world should be paused and our troubles should be forgotten. True silence is a rarity in our modern lives, but it can help us connect with ourselves and listen to our emotions.

World Gratitude Day is also observed each year on September 21st. It began in 1965 and was created by the spiritual and meditation leader Sri Chinmoy. The purpose of this holiday is to foster feelings of appreciation, positivity, worthiness, and connection, which can create a ripple effect of benefits for everyone involved. 

Can we combine these days into one celebration? Is it a time for all those mindfulness books? Can we think of all the things we are grateful for while enjoying the silence? We show gratitude to the people in our lives by giving them the space and time for some silence. I'm reminded of poor Mrs Large in Five Minutes Peace who just needed a short time out for herself. 

If you are good at meditation or creating calm with your students you will have a handful of go-to picture books that you use. If you don't and would like to explore these sort of books look at my Mindfulness Pinterest. Here's some books to look for in the library.

21st September World Gratitude Day

World Gratitude Day is a day when we should all stop to be grateful for all that is good in our world. At school we do talk to children about what they are thankful for, we talk about bucket filling and being good community members. Many families and teachers have a Blessings Jar or Gratitude Journal. I have just read an adult novel called The Happiness Jar where a girl with cystic fibrosis, despite all her health issues lives life to the fullest and records all the things that she is grateful for in her happiness jar. Perhaps it is something we should do more about with our privileged students at a time when many children still do not have the opportunity to go to school or live in a safe environment. We could do this without scaring them as much of the current refugee news is prone to do with the very young students I teach.  Americans have Thanksgiving, but here in Australia we don't have a specific day to say thank you or express gratitude and perhaps we should. These four books could help you start a discussion with very young children.

 Today is also World Alzheimer's Day. If you are not affected by this awful disease you have another good reason to be grateful. I have written about this day before and while many new books have been published since, such as Phil Cummings' Newspaper Hats and Ellie Royce's Lucas and Jack you still might find these other titles useful.