Thanksgiving Tree

Inspired by many of you who are doing similar things, last night for Family Home Evening we made a Thanksgiving Tree. On the back of some Christmas paper I drew a tree and hung it up on the wall and then cut out leaves from construction paper. Then, the girls got to draw pictures of what they are grateful for on the leaves and hang them on the tree. They LOVED this- they both thought it was the best thing ever and it kept them entertained for 20 minutes before we finally stopped them. It really turned out great. Plus, it was fun to hear what they are thankful for- though I am a bit distraught that "Boxes" came before "Family" on Audra's list.

 All of Claire's leaves were just scribbles exactly like this:

 Virtually all of her leaves were names of people: Ava, Hannah, Audra (never mom or dad, though). She kept going back to Shanelle again and again and we had to tell her she needed to come up with different things.

Audra mostly did body parts- she had elbows, nose, eyes, ears, etc. And, each picture was pretty much two circles like the picture below:

This activity actually turned out to be really great. They want to add more and more leaves, which we will do during the week as we lead up to Thanksgiving. They really got into it- I would highly recommend doing something along these lines if you are thinking of a way to try and teach gratitude to your kiddos. I know a lot of you are already doing something similar, so I thank you for your great ideas! (Speaking of great ideas, the other day Audra told me, "Mommy, I have a GREAT idea! My brain is always thinking of great ideas!")

Happy Thanksgiving!