I got this wonderful idea from a sweet, talented friend, Monica Foye, for a Thankful Tree to prepare my kids for Thanksgiving and the idea of what being thankful actually means.  As an adult, this is an equally excellent activity as you reflect on what we truly are thankful and I found myself enjoying the activity very much.

Everyone does their thankful trees a little differently I found and my chosen method was to gather some of the small fallen branches from the back yard, then arrange them in a pottery pitcher I had for a small “tree.”   Next, I drew some small basic leaf shapes on colored paper and let the kids cut them out.

And when I say basic, I  mean basic.

Now for the “thankfulness” lesson.  S was quick to grasp thankfulness and G was too once we got past the fact that this tree wasn’t a wishing tree and that being “thankful” wasn’t the same thing as “wishing” for something.  Then we were off!  G enjoyed writing his own items down and included his sister and his yellow class at church (one of his kindergarten classes there.)  I wrote things down for S then she resorted to writing random letters.  We punched holes in the leaves and hung them on the branches.  After awhile, S abandoned the leaves and started using a little note pad.  She was having too much fun.

As piano students and parents ventured in and our of our house, S, a.k.a my social butterfly, was quick to invite everyone to participate in hanging a thankful leaf on our tree.  We enjoyed having it sit on our classroom table to add to it as we felt like and I enjoyed reading the leaves throughout the day.

But would the lesson “stick”?  This is always a concern for this first-year homeschooling mama.

Thanksgiving Day arrived.  We were visiting Grandma and Granddaddy’s house in North Carolina.  As we sat down to eat, I asked G to tell Grandma and Granddaddy about our Thankful Tree.  He explained the tree, then without prompting from these parental units, he turns and asks Granddaddy, “So, Granddaddy, what are you thankful for?”

*sniff, sniff*  I promptly turned into a puddle of goo.

And for that I am thankful.

Here is our thankful tree:

Our Thankful Tree