About This Lesson
January is the perfect time for classrooms, students, staff, and families to set the tone for a positive, connected, emotionally healthy year. The wellbeing skill, Jolts of Joy, can help us intentionally notice, feel, and share uplifting emotions like joy, gratitude, hope, serenity, awe, and amusement.
These quick moments of positivity strengthen emotional regulation, deepen relationships, and boost overall wellbeing. A strong start in January often shapes the classroom atmosphere for the rest of the year.
In this resource, your school or program can weave quick, uplifting “Jolts of Joy” into daily announcements and staff meetings by using good news, music, gratitude, or positive emotion prompts to set a warm, connected, emotionally healthy tone for the day.
Here’s what you’ll get
- Sample scripts and prompts for joyful morning and afternoon announcements
- Ready-to-use staff meeting openers, including short videos, gratitude prompts, and energizers
- Flexible ideas adaptable for all classrooms, grade levels, and school settings, designed to boost positive emotions in under a minute
Why you’ll love this resource
- Creates consistent schoolwide rituals that boost morale and strengthen community
- Helps students and staff build emotional vocabulary through real, shared moments
- Low-prep and easy to integrate into announcements, meetings, and routine school communications
Ways to use
- Add Jolts of Joy to your PA system, classroom announcements, or weekly newsletters
- Open staff meetings, PD days, PLCs, or morning huddles with a 1–2 minute joy moment
- Rotate student announcers or staff “joy leaders” to build leadership, belonging, and shared ownership of school culture
What is Jolts of Joy?
Don’t wait for joy to come to you, go get more of it! Science shows that joy-inducing activities transform the way we think, perform and respond. Jolts of Joy are small, intentional actions that inject positive emotions into our day and help us take control of our wellbeing moment to moment. The overall goal is to have greater control over the ratio of positive to negative emotions you experience each day. By unleashing the power of positive emotions with intention, you and your students can jolt yourself into joy!
Science of Positive Emotions
Positive emotions create opportunities for growth and healing, mentally and physically. The Broaden and Build theory is based on the notion that positive emotions enable us to develop new and creative ways of thinking to enhance wellbeing and promote resilience. Scientific evidence finds that even little moments of joy throughout the day add up to greater physical and mental wellbeing. People who experience positive emotions think better, perform better, and feel better.
Experiencing positive emotions regularly can:
- Open our eyes and minds
- Increase creative thinking
- Expand our visual field
- Allow for global thinking and diversity
- Prevent depression and anxiety
- Undo the physiological effects of negative emotions
- Improve cardiac functioning
- Increase healthy sleep
Learn more about the science of happiness and positive emotions
Looking for more Jolts of Joy resources?
Explore the free Jolts of Joy Unit Study which comes with teaching slides, additional worksheets and activities, and even IEP and BIP recommendations tailored specifically to students with autism.
Proof Positive’s resources are and will always be free. Be well!
Bonus access to full lesson plans and unit studies on the skills of happiness at our Skill Center
