Thank You Day

Summary

Students will identify the roles that people have in the school and explain the importance of each member. They will show their appreciate for the jobs these people do by writing and delivering letters.

Materials

Instructional Procedures

Lesson:

1. With student input, draw a simple map of the school on the board.
2. Highlight rooms where important people work in the school. (e.g. secretary, librarian, principal, specialists, playground helpers, cafeteria workers, janitorial staff)
3. With the class, list the names/position of these important staff members
4. Ask what makes those employees important to running the school.
5. List the ideas for each employee on the board.
6. Divide the class into small groups. Assign each group a staff member and ask them to think of ways they can show appreciation to that person for doing their job.
7. Ask groups to share their ideas with the class.
8. As groups share, write the responses on chart paper to be displayed later.

Activity:

1. Explain that one of the ways to show appreciation is writing thank-you letters.
2. Review how to write a friendly letter and the teacher expectations for writing the letter. (e.g. handwriting, commas, spelling, length, capitols, etc.)
3. Assign students a person to write to, then have students write a rough draft on blank paper.
4. After checking off the rough draft, provide a stationary page for the final copy.
5. Groups who wrote letters for the same staff member may deliver it to that person.
6. After all letters have been delivered, use the posters created earlier to review ways to continue to show appreciation for school staff.

Extensions

Write a poem or song for students to recite/sing to support staff.