Growing Happy Kids with Dr. Seuss
House Springs Elementary grows happy kids by teaching basic leadership skills to our students. As a school, we began the year thinking, “What can we do to help our students to become successful later in life?” We surveyed the stakeholders in our community and were surprised to see that the responses were not related to factual knowledge, but rather to developing a sense of self and being able to work with others. Each month, every teacher in the school shared a story and discussed a habit from "The Seven Habits of Happy Kids" by Sean Covey. We used our bimonthly pride meetings to watch a podcast of a community member reading a Dr. Seuss book that exemplified the habit. The community members then discussed with the students how this habit has helped them be successful in their career. Pride groups then discussed what this habit would look like and sound like at school, at home, and in the community. Each pride group wrote their responses on a paper mosaic piece that would build a strong tree from the roots up. Our school has a focus. We really feel like we “began with the end in mind!”