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Gratitude Chain

Gratitude Chain

 

MATERIALS:

  • Colored paper
  • Scissors
  • Tape
  • Pen

Steps:

1) Fold paper accordion-style, leaving it the width you want for your leaves. We folded our paper in fourths.

Folded paper

2) Cut out leaf shapes, paper doll style (so that at least one leaf on each side rests on the fold so they stay attached). Emma maintains that some of my “leaves” are actually flowers. I see her point…

 paper doll style leaves

3) Hang on wall and admire.

 admiring the wall of gratitude

4) Assign one leaf to each day, and write one thing you are grateful for each day. I have 36 leaves. Assuming they all stay intact between now and the end of the month, there are enough to bring us through December 6th. This happens to be the Second Sunday of Advent this year and therefore a fitting day to switch over to a Christmas theme, if I decide to continue this for another month.

I gave Emma and Johnny additional leaves on which they inscribed their own mysterious messages to display alongside our gratitude chain:

 Writing thankful thoughts

I will probably also do the Thankful Hands activity I did with Emma and Johnny last year a little closer to Thanksgiving.

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MaryAnne at Mama Smiles

MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.

14 thoughts on “Gratitude Chain”

  1. Such a fun simple craft to do with young children.
    This reminds me of a co-op class I taught one time with a dozen or so 10-year-old boys. I wrote a word on the board and they were supposed to come up with things they were thankful for starting with each letter in the word. They started off on the right track but the longer we went the more random their suggestions were. Soon they were just blurting out all kinds of nouns starting with that letter. It was quite hilarious!

    (I was going to also leave a comment on your Thankful Hands post but the comment field wasn’t there. It is, obviously, on this one. So strange!)

  2. Great idea, and I really like thankful hands too. I think it’s time to start working on our Thanksgiving crafts :)

  3. Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog

    What fun! I love the photo of them admiring their work. So cute!! We’ll be doing a gratitude craft soon too. They are a lot of fun!

  4. Love the ‘admire’ shot. :) It looks like they are well out of reach, yet your mama insight makes me laugh, ‘assuming they all stay intact…’ So much to be thankful for!!!!!!!!

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