Thanksgiving Crafts and Lessons

We started a "Thankful Tree," thanks to the inspiration of my dear friend, Heather. We painted it and I cut it out and hung it on he wall, and every evening we have been adding to the tree. Each person, as well as the parent in charge, supplies a subject of thankfulness to record on a fall colored leaf. We placed (and memorized) the verse 107:1 on the trunk of the tree as the finished touch.

In an effort to set the tone, I had planned on saying that I was thankful for Jesus, first-- as my example. But before I could, I asked Judah what he wanted to thank the Lord for, and he replied, "I want to thank him that Jesus died on the cross for my sins." Um, what? My face split into a bewildered grin, and I agreed with my four year old that indeed, this was the most thankful thing of all. I wrote it down and Judah added it to the tree. I blinked the sheen of tears from my eyes and asked Canaan what he would like to thank God for, today. He said, "New toys." Yeah, that's actually more like what I was expecting. So, I said, "yes, isn't it wonderful for God to provide us with toys to play with? Thank you, Lord for new toys," and we wrote it down and added it to the tree. Other highlights so far have been soccer(Judah), "by big brother called Judah" (Canaan-tear! Who incidentally, also thanked God for "my baby called Annie"), the criminal justice system (Daddy who is currently serving on a jury), and cold weather and books (Mommy, obviously).

This week we have been learning about the story of the first Thanksgiving. The last 2 days we have been focusing on the Pilgrims. They now can tell me the name of the ship (Mayflower) and Judah can recall what a Pilgrim IS (someone who goes on a long journey), but when I show them a picture of a pilgrim, and ask "who is this?" they still cannot remember the word "pilgrim." So today, when we reviewed the story and I asked what the people were called, I referenced our craft from yesterday and supplied the beginning sound "P..." Canaan grinned and said, "papeweebols?" Um, no. I went with the first syllable, "Pil...." Judah raised his eyebrows. "Pillows?" he queries with a smile. I guess we need to keep talking about it.