Non-native Mommy: Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday 27 November 2014

Happy Thanksgiving! - Tree of gratitude

This year has been wonderful, there are a lot of things that we can be grateful for. I wished E. would feel the gratitude for all the amazing things in our lives.

Tree of Thanks - a great idea for Thanksgiving came from Jen, a blogger mum whose posts I've been reading on a daily basis nowadays.

The main idea is an autumn tree with brownish, yellowish, and orange leaves. We write down a few things that we are thankful for on the leaves and stick them on the tree of gratitude.

We didn't have much time to do this activity (I needed to prepare for Daddy's birthday, too), so it is not as elaborate as in the original idea.

What you need:

colour paper (red, brown, orange, green - or you can paint as Jen suggests)
scissors
a bigger sheet of sticky paper (contact paper or sticky book jacket)
markers

I quickly cut red, brown, yellow and green leaves out of colour paper and drew a tree on the sticky paper (on the non-sticky side). The latter I sellotaped (sticky side out) on the balcony window. (Unfortunately you can't see much on the photos as it got dark, but tomorrow I'll add a picture taken in daylight)

naming the different colours and counting how many leaves she has

When we arrived home, E. sat down and I told her that we should collect people and things we love and we feel thankful for. (Much to my surprise she understood and immediately said : - Daddy!) I came next: - I love Mommy so much. :D

First, we tried to write the words together, but when she added snowman and chicken thigh I wrote them on the leaves myself.

When we'd finish with our collection (cheese, Grandmas, Santa, doggy, antibody hat, i.e. her thermo-hat against ear problems) we moved to the balcony door and E. stuck up the leaves on the tree.
She was really proud of herself and also, gave a kiss to Santa :) (then to me)