Happy Notes

A few years ago I covered my classroom door with butcher paper and started posting sticky notes with little messages on them. I put up the words "Take What You Need", and within a day I started seeing these notes attached to IDs, tucked into books, and taped onto notebooks.

Then I started seeing them on administrator's clipboards and teacher's desks. It was like a happiness version of the "take a penny/leave a penny" jar you see at gas stations.

Little did I know that by the end of the day nearly all of my notes would be gone. I put more up the next day and the next and the next until I went all semester with new "happy notes" for others to enjoy each day.

The next semester I refreshed the door and added new colors and more messages.

Eventually I took it down and didn't think much of it until a student came to me one day and just about begged for the door to come back. She said, "We miss the happy notes" and asked if she could stay after school and update my door for me.

How could I resist?

Ever since, I've kept up the "happy notes" door by changing up the paper and the theme every so often. I add new sticky notes daily, and consider it my way of sending a little bit of happy out into the school.

It's hard to make a huge impact in a big school, but the happy notes door has shown me just how much a tiny act (like writing on a sticky note) CAN make a big impact.

-Ms. K