Thankful Tree

I'd like to share our Thankful Tree we made for remembering what we are thankful for this year. Each year since my daughter was born we've done something like this. The first year we just as her parents wrote down what we were thankful for because she wasn't even one year old yet. When she was one year old I made one of those "thankful turkey" crafts for her with the things she said she was thankful for. When she was two I re-purposed a tissue box to look like a turkey (my daughter colored the feathers) and then we put slips of paper in every day with what we were thankful for. This year it is the Thankful Tree! We like to do this for a few reasons, the most important reason being getting our daughter and ourselves thinking about what we are thankful for. One of the other main reasons is for a family keepsake we can always cherish every year on Thanksgiving, looking back at what our children were thankful for. 

To make our Thankful Tree I got a white poster board from Dollar Tree and drew the outline of a tree on it, we then colored the tree brown with crayon and then I outlined it with a brown Sharpie. After that I used an orange Sharpie to write "Our Thankful Tree 2015" on one side and a quote about thankfulness I really like. "Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessing." - William Arthur Ward. The last step in making it was making the leaves we will need for the month of November (when we do our thankful tree). I used green, yellow, orange, and red sheets of construction paper and cut little leaf shapes from them. I wanted some on the bottom to make it look cuter like a real fall tree so I arranged some and glued them on how I wanted.

To use the Thankful Tree you let your child grab a leaf that you've cut out for the month in any color they want and then they'll tell you what they are thankful for. You can write it for them or help them/let them write it themselves. After that you can put some glue on the back of the leaf and give it to your child to stick on the tree wherever they would like. Then you do the same with what you are thankful for, as well as your child's other parent or whoever else you would like to participate (grandparents, siblings, etc.) To keep each others thankful leaves separate I'd encourage writing an initial in the bottom corner of each leaf saying whose it was.