Simple Living
(featured column)
Thanksgiving
Activities For The Whole Family
by Deann Curtis
This
year as you think about what you have to be thankful for, try putting your
thankfulness into action. Families of young children often plan arts and
crafts activities to help reinforce the idea of thankfulness. Doing so
will help create a fun memory for the children and some darling projects to
display in the home. Listed below are some of the ideas we have used with
our own children.
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Make
a Thanksgiving Tree
Have each child trace his hands several times on construction paper. On
each piece, have the child write or draw a picture of something he is thankful
for. After cutting them out, attach them all to a paper trunk that has
been taped up to the wall.
Another version we created, was to have friends and family from near and far
send us their own paper hands that they had already traced, cut out and labeled
with their names.
Make a Chain of Thanksgiving
Cut strips of construction paper to make a paper garland for your Christmas tree
and have it ready for Thanksgiving afternoon. Then either while the family
is waiting for dinner or when it is visiting after dinner, have them all take a
pile of strips and write a different thing that they are thankful for on each
strip. When you are hanging it on the tree and throughout the month take
time to read it together. That way you can help to keep the focus on
thankfulness instead of the give-mes.
Giving to Others
Whether it is an invitation to dinner or a box full of all the fixings for a
family dinner, it seems that nothing says love quite like giving some food away.
Maybe you could invite a recent widow, or a new family in the neighborhood over
for dinner. Or maybe you know someone recovering from an illness that
could use a hot meal delivered. Either way, helping others out always
gives the giver as much joy as the person who is being helped.
This is just a small list of ideas, use it as a starting point and go from
there. If your children or grandchildren are young, you might want to do
most of the planning and have the projects be short. But the older they
are, the more they can help. Give them part of the responsibility of
planning and carrying out the activities.
Most of
all though, have fun, make memories and be thankful!
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Copyright
© 2003 by Deann Curtis
