Doesn’t Thanksgiving fall at a perfect time? Just when my girls start rattling off their extensive Christmas wish lists, I can pull out some Thanksgiving books and crafts and we can all reflect more deeply about what we are truly thankful for. Gratitude is always a topic of conversation around here, but even more so around this time of year. Plus, I needed some new decorations to tide me over till Christmas tree time. Today, we wrote Thankful Poems:
We started with making a list of all the things we are thankful for. The girls each circled the things they are most thankful for, so we could save those ideas for the end of the poem. We plugged their words into a simple poem structure:
I’m thankful for _______ and ________ and _______.
I’m really thankful for ___________.
I’m thankful for __________.
(repeat above line as many times as you like!)
But most of all, I’m thankful for ___________.
I printed their poems on watercolor paper. We covered the poem with a leaf-shape cut from clear contact paper (just like we made our initials a while back).
The girls painted the whole page, let it dry, and then peeled off the contact paper leaf. Beautiful!
If you have a fun way you are helping your kids focus on gratitude, I would love to hear about it!
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I love this idea. So simple and yet it really struck a cord with me. I have done the same resist before with a cross shape, but I love that you printed on the paper first. Thanks for the great idea. It would be fun to make it a tradition and see how it changes each year.
This is a beautiful idea! I love using clear contact paper with watercolors to do a bunch of projects too but we haven’t done an autumn themed one yet. Thanks for sharing!
What a wonderful idea! We will definitely be trying this! Thanks
This is a great idea! My girls and I will have this on our to-do list of crafts this month!
Love this idea, thank you for sharing it!!!
.: A miniature of this will make the most memorable Christmas tree ornaments~
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How cute, love the idea
Very cute! I am doing the poem and a similar activity in my 2nd grade classroom. Instead of using water colors I have cut out fall colored leaves. I cut the center area out and they will fill the rest of the paper with the fall leaves. Then I am going to glue the poem to the back.
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