I simply cannot believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner. In the spirit of Thankfulness the kids and I did another tree project to talk about what they are thankful for. All you need is construction paper, scissors, glue, and markers and your child can make their own version of a thankful tree.
This is actually the first project that we did that pertained to thankfulness and it prompted me to create a Thankful Tree for our home so that we could talk about what we are thankful for as a family each day. This project, however, was all about the kids. It was a quick and simple project that required just a few supplies. It’s a perfect rainy or snowy day activity to keep little hands busy, and a great opportunity to find out what your little ones are thankful for.
Cut out a pile of leaves from construction paper. If you kids are handy enough with scissors, you can just print out a leaf pattern repeated on construction paper and let them cut them out. I used a variety of colors to make the trees full of fall leaves. I created the tree trunk with a brown paper bag, but construction paper would do just fine. Next is the fun part! Start asking your kids what they are thankful for, and fill the leaves with everything that they come up with. It was so fun, and quite interesting to hear what they really are thankful for. I put exactly what they told me they were thankful for onto the leaves. These will be fun to look back on year after year. I can’t wait to see how things change as they get older.
Have the kids attach their tree trunks, and then one by one they can glue their leaves onto the tree however they would like. Label each tree with their name and display their fancy thankful tree proudly all month long.
This was a great way to introduce thankfulness to my 2 and 4 year old children without it being to complicated for them to understand. We talked about why we should be thankful, what it means, how we show it, and why we are so blessed. Having them put onto paper what they are thankful for is a great reminder of how many things and and people they are blessed with in their lives. We will be using the people on the trees that they made to send fun turkey day inspired “I’m Thankful For You cards” closer to Thanksgiving.