Teaching Children to be Thankful

This week for our stART (story+ART=stART) project we read the book Thanks For Thanksgiving by Julie Markes and made our own thankful turkeys. 

I think I'm fairly fortunate with my children, they say "thank you" quite a bit.  Each night when I make dinner, whether it be something elaborate like thanksgiving dinner or something as simple as hot dogs and french fries, my kids will say thank you.  They might change it up a bit and say thanks for making dinner mom....or thank you for this food....or this is my favorite thing, thanks mommy.   But every night, without fail at least one if not all the kids will remember to thank me. 

It's nice to feel their gratitude.  It makes me feel appreciated and who wouldn't like that.  It's that simple thank you, that has led into other feelings of thankfulness.  Now, while they don't thank me for all the other things that I do around here...endless trips to the school to drop off forgotten things, being their taxi service, cleaning the toilets, etc.  I do know that they are thankful for that and me (at least I hope so). 

For our craft, I helped Nathan make a "Thankful Turkey".  We used scrapbooking paper for an added flair and pretty much free handed everything and then I asked Nathan to tell me what he was thankful for.  Somehow, I was left out until the end.....hmmph! Here I was making a craft with him and he almost forgot to be thankful for me - Unless, he thought he was being cute and trying to mess with my head.  Yeah, that sounds good, well go with that one!).

Nathan is thankful for....

his brothers and sisters

his teachers

the food he eats

his strong Daddy

projects and crafts

turkey on turkey day

all his books

pie, cupcakes and cookies

and last, but I hope not the least....his Mommy

And, speaking of being thankful - I'm thankful to my friend Penny, who gave us a bunch of scrapbooking and other crafty fun stuff.  Thanks again Penny!

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