Our Thankful Tree

So last year, my cousins had the wonderful idea to start a thankful tree in November. Each day, every member of the family wrote down one thing to be thankful for on a leaf. It was a project that spoke a lot to me, and I wanted to try it in my home too.

I remembered on Sunday night.

Since it was already two weeks into November, I decided to incorporate the thankful tree into my planning for the week by creating some leaf templates and printing them on colorful construction paper. We put the tree up Monday and added two rounds of leaves. First Sprout was able to write most of the words independently (although I was willing to help with names by writing them down as a reference). Second Sprout wanted to write leaves as well, and it was a good opportunity to practice kid-writing.

Here are some of the leaves we made. I printed the templates out on colorful card stock, and First Sprout helped with the cutting. We used metallic Sharpie pens to get extra fancy. And for the record, this Mama is thankful for coffee.

 I think we will probably put up another round of leaves next week (maybe on Thanksgiving Day) since the kids keep asking when we can make more. I am thankful happy that everyone is so excited about the project! Once we got going, it was really easy to come up with more ideas.

I used brown packing paper (the kind that comes in boxes from Amazon) to make the trunk of the tree and adhered it to the wall with sticky tack. First Sprout made the sign, which translates to "We are thankful for our family."

It's a lovely idea and a lovely result. I'm so glad that I remembered this project with enough time to get it going before Thanksgiving. Maybe next year I will remember to start earlier in November!

Happy Learning!