6. the HAPPY Project

Opening Reflection:

Create an entry in your Mahara Journal where you will reflect upon a time in their life when they experienced a high point of personal happiness. What made that experience one of the happiest moments you? Who was impacted by your feelings of happiness in that situation? What brought about this experience?

Discussion Questions:

Do you believe happiness is something that you are born with or that you can develop for yourself and others? What underlies your beliefs and assumptions? Can you identify individuals who you believe are born with a happy disposition?

Do you know of people who are happy with who they are and what they have in life? Describe this person’s characteristics and attributes and their personal philosophy of how they view life. How does this person live their life?

HAPPY the Movie:

You will view and discuss the movie HAPPY.

Guest Speaker:

Crossfield writer Julianne Harvey will share her insights into what brings people happiness. She is the author of the children's book B The Wonder Bear, the e-book and paperback Authentic=Happy: A Guide to Dismantling Your Disguise and two anthologies of daily blog posts, The Dream to Write 2010 Blog and The Dream to Write 2011 Blog.

Interview Assignment:

Interview some senior citizens in your life (they don’t necessarily have to be centurions!) and ask: To you, what is the secret to a happy life? Be curious and create an investigative report of your findings. Your will choose a medium of your choice: written one page essay, oral one minute presentation, or short one minute video. The for this assignment is: quality of content (20 marks) and quality organization/delivery (10 marks). We will discuss and develop the rubric for this in class.

Gratitude Assignment:

• Think Pair Share – Write down some of the things that you are grateful for. With a partner, share some of the things for which you are grateful. We will create a board of gratitude shared by the class.
• You will create a gratitude journal in your Mahara Journal by writing about 3-5 things for which you are grateful. Explain each thing in detail and tell why you are grateful.
• Think of a specific person whom you would like to express appreciation to and who has been influential or kind to you. Write a letter to that person.

Here is a sample of a friendly letter. Use this format. You can prepare this letter in a Google Doc and share it with vgray@rvschools.ab.ca

Random Acts of Kindness:

Instructions : Choose one day per week to do four random acts of kindness. For the
next four weeks, conduct your random acts of kindness on this day of the week.
Your acts of kindness can be large of very small. Examples include helping a sibling with
homework, visiting a nursing home, or buying a friend lunch.

You can conduct these acts alone or in a group.

Q: What would I do to make someone else's day better?

Q: How can we make the world around us a better place? We will watch these videos and have class discussion around them.













Random Acts of Kindness Ideas

Making Headlines Assignment
To begin, students will define kindness. We will discuss what kindness looks like, feels like and then sounds like. People in other countries perform more everyday acts of kindness just like us. Your task is to find a current event article about an act of kindness performed in another country. You may use the internet, newspapers, or magazines. Then, you will write a summary of the article and write a paragraph about why you think the article shows kindness. You will receive 10 marks for the writing mechanics in your paragraph and 10 marks for the quality of your selected article/content of your writing.

Use the newspaper link below to find global newspapers:
http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/

Random Acts of Kindness

1. On your own, you will complete an act of kindness in your family. Once you have completed your act of kindness we will discuss it in class.

2. You will work in groups to initiate and complete a random act of kindness in your school or community.

• You must complete a detailed plan in a Google Doc. Your plan must indicate the date, details, material needed, etc. (you will receive a mark out of ten - criteria include: quality of your plan/idea, organization and content of your plan)
• A mark will be given on the execution of your act of kindness. How did it work out? Is your act a "class act" - did you make a difference or impact? (ten marks)
• Presentation of your act of kindness. Create a slide show with a minimum of five or six slides. The slide show should include details of your act of kindness (think the five Ws). You should include visuals and summaries. Be prepared to present for 2-3 minutes. You may use a Google Presentation. Any other methods of presentation must be approved with the teacher prior to starting.

3. You end by blogging in your Mahara journal about your experiences with acts of kindness.