The Thanksgiving Tree
By Kay on Tue, Nov 11, 2008
I was talking with a friend of mine recently when she mentioned this idea she had seen and I decided Kate and I just had to do it! (All of that to say, this wasn’t my idea! 
Thanks for sharing, Sandra!)
Kate and I decided to celebrate Thanksgiving by thinking of things we are grateful for all month long. And to write these things down, we’re posting them on our “Thanksgiving Tree” on our pantry door.
We took a few pieces of newspaper and taped them together on the back, then drew a large tree trunk and some branches with crayons. Then we drew some different kinds of leaves on another piece of newspaper, cut them out as stencils, and traced and cut many more out of yellow, orange, and red construction paper.
We’ve chosen to write one thing we are thankful for per leaf and also to sign our names to each leaf so we know who wrote which thing. I tried to let Kate choose as much of the craft as possible so that she would have ownership in it all. She was so excited to tape her first leaf to the tree and couldn’t wait to have brother and sister home so they could ‘write’ one, too.
So far, we have about a dozen leaves on our tree ranging from being thankful for ‘our family’ all the way to being thankful for ‘my Groovy Doll’. She’s loving adding to it and I love that it’s perpetuating an attitude of gratefulness during this Thanksgiving season.
So, what Thanksgiving traditions do you and your family celebrate?
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Tags: art
November 12th, 2008 at 6:29 am
What a great idea!!! You gals are sooo crafty!
November 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I think she comes by it naturally. While I can do crafty things, I most definitely don’t think that way all the time. My dear daughter, on the other hand, has her grandmother’s genes through and through and can’t help BUT think in crafty ways. She’s always got some craft going on in the playroom/schoolroom. I think she’d rather craft than just about anything else in the whole world. So, now my challenge is what to do with all those projects – the finished ones as well as the ‘in progress’ ones.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Oh how I love this idea. Maggie may not be old enough yet but I plan to start on this today! Thanks for sharing the idea.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
You never know what kids will get at her age. Karis tells me things to write on her leaves and seems to ‘get it’ on some level, although most of the things she tells me are just her repeating something her brother or sister has just said. (It’s actually kind of cute!)
I can actually see this becoming a bit of a tradition in our house. Maybe next year Kate and I can spend a little more time and make a sturdier tree that will last through the years and maybe even laminate the leaves to use over and over, too. But, for now, this was a fun activity that only took about an hour start to finish.
Let me know if you decide to do it, though! I’d love to get to see your tree, too!
May 16th, 2009 at 6:08 am
we did this when mack was young…somehow after bryce got older we did not do anymore….hmmmm….we did so many amazing things with her…
May 16th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Karen~
Isn’t it true that we do so many amazing things with the first kid and it just seems to taper off the more kids we have! So sad, but so true. Our attention gets divided between so many things that we just run out of time – not to mention the additional dishes and laundry!