Between trying to get the house ready to host Thanksgiving and Brielle cutting 3 molars at once we didn’t end up doing a lot of our toddler activities. We got in a few though. We had a Thanksgiving week and the things we did do were awesome! We went to Kneaders and split a pumpkin cookie, they were out of turkeys 🙁
We also got some new books that fit perfectly into our theme and both are darling stories. Not shown: we also had a Thanksgiving themed sensory box. I put rice (we keep a bag of it for phone mishaps like when they are thrown into the toilet by a darling little devil so it worked well to use for the sensory box and not wasting rice just for this activity) in a small bin. Along with the rice I put a small ceramic turkey, some plastic pumpkins, feathers and small decorative ears of corn. All I got at the dollar store. She loved it!
This is something we’ve been working on all month though! Every afternoon right before Daddy gets home we talk about something that she’s been particularly happy about that day. Sometimes it’s her shoes or a new book but I write it down and she helps me put the leaf of the day up on our Thankful Tree. I know she’s still too young to really appreciate this activity but I really loved doing it with her. It’s helped me stay more attentive to her moods throughout the day so I can write something I saw her really enjoying that day. I also think it’ll be a permanent tradition, I’m planning on leaving the tree up year round. I’m going to print out some snowflakes and laminate them so we can still put up things we’re thankful for in the winter. The tree also came with green leaves so we’ll use them in the spring and summer. It’s so important to me that Brielle grows up knowing gratitude. We’re so blessed, overall and in the mundane day to day things that we can take for granted. It’s so important that she know how lucky she is to live in a country that is safe. That she’s lucky to have parents who love her. That she’s lucky to be healthy. I could go on and on. Plus, I’ve noticed it’s much easier to be happier when you acknowledge things you’re thankful for…big or small.
I got the tree from Amazon. It comes in 4 pieces and you can remove the middle part of the trunk (with the squirrels) to make the trunk shorter if your space in mind needs a smaller tree. It comes with 32 fall and 32 green leaves. All pieces are a heavy cardstock material that has a laminate material on the front so you’re able to use any dry erase marker and they wipe of quickly and easy. When you pop each leaf out be careful, I had a few rip when I was going to fast but once they were out the entire thing has held up well. Even the bottom, which if you look on the lower left part of the tree trunk you can see that enthusiastic little hands had to explore the new item.
