Thankfulness is such a key concept to this holiday. While Thanksgiving pushes thoughts and feelings of gratitude to the forefront of our minds once each year, Judaism teaches us daily to feel and express gratitude. We begin each and every morning with a declaration of gratitude to G-d for restoring our soul into our bodies for yet another day. The Modeh Ani is one of the first prayers children learn to say. We also make special blessings over different types of foods before eating. Thereby, we are reminded throughout the day--even in the most menial and physical of routines like waking up and eating--that we have all that we need and we need all that we have, thank G-d. Our Thanksgiving unit seemed like an extra special time to learn and play a bit more about the special blessings over foods. As he gets more and more verbal, my son loves to say his own brachos and will even remind me to do so with him if I forget! He loved this sorting activity this morning:
I brought a basket of toy foods and props from his dramatic play area over to the rug in a basket. I was given this set of posters as a gift when I left a teaching job before I was married. The school was cleaning out its Jewish books and materials closet and someone thought I might have a use for them in the future. I remember kind of chuckling to myself because I didn't know if I'd go back to teaching after I was married or not and wondered to myself what I would possibly need them for if not. Nonetheless, they made the move from New York to Virginia and have gotten a lot of use both in my classrooms and home ever since! One at a time, he selected an item from the basket and we decided together (or sometimes he did so independently) which poster to place it on. Beginners to learning brachos over foods would do best to be introduced only two or three different food groups at a time. I was actually quite amazed at how well my son did with this activity and that he actually wanted to keep playing after we had completed the game!
Thanksgiving is also a great time to explore the concept of table manners, trying new foods and even practical life skills like setting the table and folding napkins. Writing skills can come into play if you involve children in making place cards for guests or family members. You can use pictures of traditional Thanksgiving foods cut from magazines or newspaper grocery adds to glue onto paper plates to play your own game of "Yes, please, No thank you!" Kids can definitely be included in creating this activity and older ones can practice cutting skills as well.
There are oh so many cute and adorable Thanksgiving arts and crafts projects out there. I try to balance craft projects with process art opportunities and some fun with mixing Autumn colors and painting seemed like a great way to include some more process art into the menu.
We love painting on bubble wrap! It's a fun sensation with a paintbrush and, of course, with hands as well. The prints come out beautifully when you press paper over the top. We will use the dried prints later on to make this adorable "I is for Indian Corn" alphabet craft.
After covering the bubble wrap with gorgeous shades of red, orange, yellow and brown, my little artist still wanted to paint some more on paper. I offered some paper and some "turkey" feathers to use as a paintbrush. He LOVED "tickling" the paper with the paint-dipped feathers.
And in between all of the games and arts and crafts, we're still making time for snuggling up and reading. PJ Library is a wonderful organization that provides free books for Jewish children and families nationwide. I was so excited to be a part of this great program in my own community that I actually attempted signing up my firstborn while I was at the hospital and in labor. Long story short, I needed to know the gender, name and birth date of my child and none of those were yet confirmed at the time! So I signed up as soon as we were home from the hospital. Our first book arrived right around the time he was 6 months old and we've looked forward to the wonderful gift of building up our Jewish family library each and every month since.
He were are almost two years ago with that very first book, Todah by Kyra Teis. Todah is the Hebrew word for "thank you," and the beautifully illustrated story takes the reader page by page through the many things a little baby might feel thankful for throughout the day. I started putting the sweet, lyrical poem to music back then and we would sing our way through the book again and again. Today he was so excited to find it inside his school bag since we had not read it together for quite a while. He chimed in with "todah" each time my finger pointed to the word.
Holidays here are all about creating new family traditions together and revisiting and nurturing old ones. Whether you're building a menu for next week or just building with blocks, know that the times we spend in connection together are by and far the most meaningful and memorable ones our children will have. Happy connecting, happy creating and happy playing!
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