A couple of weeks ago Josiah and I took on a craft. We did a little each day for three days. The first day we printed out some leaves, I cut them (he tried to cut some..those got demolished, but at least he tried) and we colored them together. That took about 2 of the days. Then we talked about things we were thankful for. We want to teach Josiah to be grateful for things that he has and a perfect time to teach it is during the Thanksgiving season. He has also been extremely interested in the leaves around the neighborhood. Each day that we walk he has noticed them changing colors and falling without me telling him anything. He always asks me why and so I explain that we are changing seasons and leaves change colors and fall. He is so interested in it and I am proud of him for his awareness of the things that go on around him. He notices everything! On day two of making this Tree of Thankfulness (that is what we decided the name would be), after coloring the rest of the leaves we went on a little hunt around the neighborhood to find the perfect "tree" (aka branch made to look like a tree). We came home and finished our tree by punching holes in the leaves (Josiah loved doing this) and then we put strings on each leaf and hung it on our tree. I finished it up by putting it into a glass vase with some red glass balls in the bottom to weigh it down. This project was completely FREE and totally FUN!! Josiah will now point to his tree and ask what does the "lellow (or another color) leaf say mommy?" Here are some of the things that Josiah said he was thankful for:
*God
*Daddy
*Mommy
*Dakota and Sequoia
*our car
*Family (he started by naming them individually, but I talked him into just having one for everyone...we could quickly fill the tree with that one)
*Food (and then he wanted two separate ones for Grapes and Apples - lol...I guess according to him those do not fall under the food category)
*Toys
*Church
*Friends (and then he started naming his friends so we wrote those names on the one leaf)
*Water
And many more.
I hope to do something like this each year with him. It is important to teach your child gratefulness and this was a fun way to do it. Enjoy the pictures that I took of him after we completed our craft.
No comments:
Post a Comment