Kid's Thanksgiving Activity: DIY Thankful Tree

As usual, the timing of my posts are not a month ahead of the actual holiday, like the rest of the crafty blogging world. But now with Pinterest, you can go ahead and pin this project for next year!

Being a few months shy of 3 years old, Mia is barely preschool aged.  Despite being a young kid, we still opted to do a DIY Thankful Tree as a simple, easy, and free Thanksgiving activity.

Cost: $0

Time: 30 minutes

Materials: colorful paper, tape, marker, scissors, brown paper bag (optional), turkey (optional, came from an old greeting card)

Steps: 

1. For the trunk, I used a brown paper bag that I bring my wine home in. No cutting necessary, just tape right on the wall!

2. For the tree, from 4 sheets of green construction paper, I free-handed unevenly scalloped bushes and taped it to the wall. Use scrap edges for the grass.

3. For 30 leaves, cut various shapes from various colors of paper. Also free-handed. Fold sheets of paper in half, thirds or fourths to yield multiple leaves from one cut.

4. Every day, pick a leaf and write what you are thankful for and tape it up!

This squirrel {from one of Mia's school projects} reminds me of the fearless critters on the Quad in college.

I thought of the first few things to be thankful for so Mia could get the gist of what we were doing. Can you guess which ones Mia suggested on her own?
     Birthdays - girl loves to sing the song and party plan like mommy
     School - she cannot wait to go every day instead of just 3 days a week
     Daisy - her stuffed animal Dog
     Castle - a princess one of course
     Kitchen (set) - she cooks every single day, especially while I cook dinner (lifesaver!)
     Trick or treat candy - she has a sweet tooth like mommy!
     Pumpkin patch and farm - her 1st field trip with school, and
     Thanksgiving
We hold the marker together and I write out each letter so Mia can tell me what letter she sees as I spell each word. Great teaching tool! We also read every leaf when we're done to reinforce what we were thankful for on the previous days. Even under the age of 3, I think she gets it. It'll be fun to see how her answers change each year!

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