Throughout the month of November, we spend our time talking about what it means to be grateful and how to express our gratitude. One of our favorite activities is to create a Thankful Tree in our home.
Our goal is to start our Thankful Tree on the first day of November each year!
Gratitude Practice
This Thankful Tree is truly something that my kids look forward to each year. We started this back in 2020 when everything that fall felt a little different. Now with more kids contributing, we end up with a tree full of leaves and so many things to be grateful for.
We often talk about our emotions and how looking for bright spots can turn our day around. During this month, it is amazing to see some of the things that the children are thankful for. Some days it is bigger ideas: family, friends, school, etc. Other days, they find joy in the simplest things: sunshine, certain foods, etc. We love to watch their ideas and even doing this yearly to see what repeats itself and what they notice in the new year.
Thankful Tree Goals
Truly, my goal with the Thankful Tree is to bring awareness back to the things we start to take for granted and to try to bring our minds back to thinking about something we are grateful for every day. Honestly, every year when we start this activity, it is interesting to see how hard it is for them to come up with ideas of what they are grateful for. By the end of the month, each year I think they will run out of ideas but instead they surprise me and come running with new ideas.
Each year I always think, maybe we should do this more than once a year to keep us in the gratitude mindset.
Chalk Wall
We use a chalkboard wall in our house, if you don’t have one – it is super simple to make! All you need is some chalkboard paint and a blank space. This allows us to use this space year round and not just for our thankful tree.
How We Make Our Thankful Tree
We use our chalkboard wall and then I have used my Cricut to cut out leaves to write on. The first couple of years, I cut out new leaves each year. Last year, I decided to cut out leaves and laminate them. Now, we have a collection of leaves that we reuse each year. I have a suspicion I may need to make more this year!
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