Thankful {A Printable for Giving Thanks}

Can you believe Thanksgiving is less than a week away?

This has been the fastest year yet! By now, we all have already been thinking and planning our thanksgiving day, we’re getting excited (well, at least I am)about the parade, we’ve talked about pilgrims and Indians, the guys are getting ready for the football games, soon to gather together with friends and family and to give thanks!

And we ALL have so much to be thankful for!

For me, beyond all the physical things like purchasing our first home, creating a new school room and other things, what I am most thankful for are experiencing the birth of our new baby, watching my kids continue to grow, celebrated 10 years of marriage and much growing pains along the way that have all pointed us back to a loving, generous God AND being thankful for it all.

What are you thankful for this year?

With thankfulness in mind, I was asked to come up with a craft for my kids‘ co-op for the thanksgiving party. I took a trip to pinterest and began scrolling. One thing was common: thankful trees, which we have actually made before but for 40 kids I wouldn’t be able to make 3D trees, so I looked over some other ideas and thought, I’ll make a printable.

So I went on picmonkey and came up with this.

Then, once my creative juices were flowing, I thought we can use Trader Joe’s bags to make a frame with a handle and embellish with some stickers we had. And since we have a resource room at our school, I used die-cuts to make some leaves. And I got my craft on. I know most people don’t have die-cuts, so here is a printable I found with leave for y’all.

I look forward to making these with the kindergarten through 3rd graders on Monday, just in time for Thanksgiving!

Make your own Thankful Display:

What you need:

thankful printable (get one w/o the year below)
brown paper grocery bag
glue stick
paints
*optional for embellishments: pipe cleaners, foam stickers, clothes pins, leaves

What to do:

Gather supplies
Print out thankful printable
Talk about what being thankful means with your kiddos. Discuss the verse Colossians 2:7 and what being rooted in Christ means.
Have your kids use their fingers to make some beautiful fall leaves with the paint, set aside to dry
While paint is drying, cut out one side of the brown paper bag, write things you are thankful on the leaves
Paste paper to brown paper bag, add embellishments
Display for a reminder of thankfulness

I hope you have a blessed Thanksgiving with your loved ones, I am truly thankful for all of you!