Three Pre-school Thanksgiving Crafts

 Pre-school and early elementary children learn best by doing. While learning to be thankful should be taught during every season, Thanksgiving time is a great time to emphasis thankfulness. An activity or two in preparation of the big day of feasting adds to the excitement.

    If your family gathering will have the tradiitonl "kids table," then put you little ones to work creating the centerpiece for thier table. Pinecones painted with child friendly tempra paint in the orange, reds and yellows of fall will brighten up the table. They can be stacked in the center, used as place setting card holder at each place or arranged in a basket.

   Another idea is to cover the kids' table with white butcher paper. Draw the outline of a large tree with bare branches on the paper.  Place red, orange, yellow and brown crayons or markers at the table. As the children, or even adults, wait for dinner encourage everyone to draw a leaf on the tree and write or draw a picture on the leaf of something for which they are thankful. By the end of the day the tree should be covered with colorful thanks.

   Create a table or after dinner game all the guests can play that prompts all to be creative in thinking of their many blessings. Before dinner write categories on slips of paper such as school, home, church, a family member, a lesson learned, nature, weather, friends, and God. Each person takes a turn drawing a slip of paper. Everyone in the group must name something in that category for which they are thankful and no two people can say the same thing. This will stretch everyones thankful thoughts.

As parents we are very blessed by our children and as we acknowledge aloud to them how thankful we are for the blessings God has given us, they will learn to see the blessing in their lives and incorporate thankfulness in their day.