Lessons From The Classroom - Thankful Tree

In light of the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday, and the need to spice up the Fall decor in our house:), we have been working on a special activity.  We call it the Thankful Tree.  I've seen this idea from many other sites and thought it was great!

We went outside and gathered some sticks.  You can spray paint them if you want.  Then, we sat down and talked about Fall Colors.  We picked out all of our fall color paint and painted some construction paper.  Later, we took a walk outside and the kids picked out a couple of their favorite leaves.  We use those to trace the leave shapes on the paper.  They are then cut out and taped on the sticks.

Here's the "Thankful" part.  Each day we are thinking of something relevant (this just means that if they say "for all the people in the world", we narrow it down a little bit, or make it a bit more practical, ha!) that we are thankful for and write it on a leaf.

If you remember, last week I started another new activity, as well.  Whenever the kids start bickering at each other they have to stop and take turns telling each other things that they are thankful for, or appreciate, about the other one.  It helps get their minds off of their quarrel and back on to their hearts.

How about you, have you been having some Thankful fun this week?