Teaching Thankful

I've been coming across lots of good ideas for crafts to help make thankfulness "tangible".  However, most of these involve a lot of time to make, a lot of space to store, and writing.  And things with writing aren't terribly appealing to me right now since my kids don't read.  And I seem to be short on time and space at the moment!

So, in an effort to make sure we acknowledge the things we are thankful for, but not go crazy with a craft that's going to get ripped down in a couple of weeks, I started looking around.  I found a bulletin board in the hallway that had things hanging on it, but no one ever stopped to look at it.  So, I removed those items....

Then Clinton and I worked on a small fall craft to help our board feel festive.  We just used some colored play dough to create this.  I was using a new dough recipe and it did not bake well which is why there is not a tutorial on this....there was lots of backtracking and cleaning up before we actually got a finished product!  Might I suggest making yours with pretty paper?  :-)

I found some scrapbook paper in the crap closet and cut out the letters for THANKFUL.  We then started adding pictures of things for which we are thankful.  Clinton's immediate response was, "Mommy.  Daddy.  Hi-hee (Heidi Sage).  Clinton.  And two trains."  I haven't gotten the pictures of the trains up yet.

I also used his kid's dictionary to look up the word thank/thankful and we started our discussion there.  And I dug through the kids' books until I found a couple of books about being thankful and grateful.  We've had several discussions about how people don't always have friends, family, food, homes, etc.  I see things starting to sink in, but at the same time I think maybe he doesn't really believe me....but we'll get there!

I hope you find a way to document your THANKFULNESS with your kiddos this season.  I think it's a good lead up to Christmas....the season of plenty too much.  

If you have ideas for ways to teach your kids about thankfulness, post it on our FB Wall.  We'd love to see everyone's ideas!