Three Tasty Play Activities That Are [Almost] Good Enough to Eat!

This time of year can find us busy in the kitchen and kids are eager to join in, whether it's tasting, playing or offering a hindering helping hand. Some of the time I do invite the kids into the kitchen to help with cooking and sometimes I join them in play activities about cooking or baking. And sometimes, I need a really great play activity that will keep them busy while I cook and bake in the kitchen... This post has you covered for all three scenarios and more!

Growing up, I honestly thought a cranberry was something cylindrical in shape, with jellied indentations on its outside that held a remarkable resemblance to the inside of a tin can. Cranberry sauce was served only with turkey and always sliced in even circles, gently laid upon the same white Pyrex dish every single time. Ah, the memories. My mom is a great cook, so heaven only knows why she never made cranberry sauce, but I loved the canned stuff. (Maybe that's why--there was now officially ONE thing I'd eat on the Thanksgiving table...)

Well fast forward to this year, and I kept seeing photos of cranberry and water sensory bins floating around the internet. I have mixed opinions about playing with food, but it is not something I am rigidly against in my home. Y in particular loves water play, and both boys have been enjoying our Bakery Shop Dramatic Play Center. So I picked up a couple of packs of cranberries, grabbed some of our cooking/baking props (actual bowls, colanders and utensils from Dollar Tree) and added water. It was a hit! The cranberries were so much fun to scoop, smoosh, transfer and stir. The water was a perfect medium for pouring and mixing. When the day was done, I drained the water and stored the cranberries in the refrigerator for more play the next day. Meanwhile, in the kitchen I discovered how easy making your own cranberry sauce from scratch actually is! Just a batch of cranberries, a cup of orange juice and a cup of sugar, simmered on the stovetop until those cranberries POP! About ten minutes later, I had cranberry sauce...who knew?

Well, speaking of our bakery theme... The boys have really been engaged in dramatic play! They have both loved setting up and selling items from our bakery shop, taking orders, making specialty drinks in our hot beverage cups (just hot cups with lids) and creating additional play props to add to the scene. We brought out the Model Magic clay again to create some play donuts (hand shaped) and cupcakes (shaped in cupcake tins). Once the clay air dried (it took a few days here for the thicker cupcakes) we got out some tempura paint and glitter glue for decorating.

These cupcakes look almost good enough to eat and the boys love playing with props they made themselves!

For another DIY play prop that even smells almost good enough to eat, I whipped up a batch of gingerbread salt dough to make play gingerbread cookies. Here's the recipe I concocted if you'd like to make your own. The dough is easy to work with, smells great and dries very well overnight (you may want to flip your "cookies" intermittently to ensure they dry on both sides and through the center). They can be painted and coated with a seal if you really want them to last or to use them decoratively. They are not immune to breaking when dropped, but they boys are having fun with them nonetheless, and if they end up tossed away after we close up the bakery shop this year, we definitely got good use out them. They can for sure be stored and saved if you wish.

Gingerbread Salt Dough Recipe
You will need:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 3/4 cup warm water

Mix your ingredients well until you have a smooth dough. (The dough will be darker than the dried cookies pictured on the left.) To shape your "cookies," roll dough about 1/4 inch thick and cut in your favorite shapes with cookie cutters. Allow finished cookies to air dry until completely hardened. Paint, seal and decorate as you wish. To store leftover dough, seal in a plastic bag or container and refrigerate to prolong shelf-life.

The boys are so excited for Chanukah that I set out some Chanukah shaped cookie cutters along with our gingerbread men. And speaking of Chanukah, here's a shameless plug for my Chanukah Counting Soup available on Teachers Pay Teachers. This is a fun way to promote early math skills, great for ages 3-8 for use in your home and/or classroom. Take advantage of Cyber Monday (and Tuesday) and save 20% ! 

Whatever holidays or special events you're preparing for, I wish you a productive and playful time. Stay tuned for some exciting updates to our dramatic play theme here in the next couple of weeks and until then...

Happy playing!

A Peek Inside Our Playroom: Thanksgiving Theme

Y's first induction into our Thanksgiving Wall of Fame

Thanksgiving is my favorite American holiday that we don't actually celebrate! Well, we kind of do...both my husband and I love the traditional Thanksgiving foods, but neither of us wants to have a huge meal on a Thursday and then again for Shabbos. My husband's birthday is also around Thanksgiving, so we usually have a Thanksgiving themed Shabbos somewhere in there. Last year while I was homeschooling S, we had a lot of themed fun and learning and enough paper plate crafts by the end of it to serve an entire Thanksgiving meal! This year, he is learning about Thanksgiving in his preschool and at home, I've added in some themed fun to our play area for the boys to explore. After a morning of more structured activity, I like our afternoons to be more child-led when it comes to S--and this truly seems to be the ideal pace for him as well. Y has been making leaps and bounds in development lately and is especially eager to play, engage in songs and action rhymes and even try his hand (and, um mouth) at arts and crafts!

Our Thanksgiving Wall of Fame--with a couple of favorites from last year and a lot of restraint on my part to leave space for new creations and not hang up EVERY single paper plate Thanksgiving craft known to man...

Both boys really love the fingerplay "Five Little Turkeys" from DLTK's Crafts for Kids. Last year I made a set of turkey stick puppets to use along with it:

Five Little Turkeys

Five little turkeys standing at the door,

One waddled off, and then there were four.

Four little turkeys sitting near a tree,

One waddled off, and then there were three.

Three little turkeys with nothing to do,

One waddled off, and then there were two.

Two little turkeys in the morning sun,

One waddled off, and then there was one.

One little turkey better run away,

For soon it will be Thanksgiving Day.

Our Art Center has had a major revamp:

Ta da!

This time around, I included a combination of more "project" inspired art and more "process" inspired art along with a variety of materials to use in combination or on their own. This set up is aimed to be child-led in that S can choose what activity he'd like to try and independently access, bring it to his table, carry out the activity and bring it back when he is done. Our "U-pick a Project" basket is stocked in the middle cube with Thanksgiving craft kits leftover from last year. Other cubes are more open-ended...

With our playdough tray and cutting practice turkey collage tray, I included laminated photos of suggested creations on velcro. I showed S how to remove and replace the pictures if he wants to bring to the table with him when he uses the trays. I also made sure to tell him that this is one way to use the materials, but there are many ways to use them and he can use them in his own way when he's working with them.

Our invitation to create a playdough turkey is a favorite worth repeating from year to year. And if you've even found yourself with a collection of unused brown playdough from party packs (or a toddler-inspired color mixing project), here's your chance to put it to good use! That along with some orange card-stock beaks, googly eyes, pipe cleaner legs and feathers are all the materials you'll need to build an adorable little Thanksgiving turkey! Sub in some Model Magic clay for a project you can allow to dry and decorate your table, or just remove the parts and put it back on the shelf for your next play session.

S loves anything that involves scissors and cutting practice. He's early in his cutting skill development so cutting the edges of these feather shapes is the perfect way to combine his love of the activity with some actual function and intention. You really can't go wrong with feathers...even if you cut all the way across! I included some pre-cut brown bodies, orange beaks, a red waddle, a glue stick and some eye stickers.

Our invitation to create a turkey collage is a the perfect combination of recycling and craftiness. I had some pre-cut turkeys from last year and I have several ziplock sandwich bags full of loose craft parts and interesting papers and ribbons. Throw in some glue and a stash of colorful feathers and you're ready to go.

The materials on our shelves can be used in a variety of combinations as well. In addition to the specific trays and activities, I also included some of our favorite writing and drawing materials. Slick stix and do-a-dot markers are always popular, and also friendly to the smaller set of hands in the family as they are thick enough for fist-gripping and easily mark on paper. A couple of pencil cups filled with markers and crayons are visually inviting to S whereas keeping them in tubs or bins often leaves them out of sight and out of mind. 

I included a tray of do-a-dot activity sheets that can be used with these stickers, with bingo dabbers, or even with magnets or mini erasers if you prefer a re-usable version. The "T is for Turkey" page is available for print from Making Learning Fun, where you can find a variety of great Thanksgiving themed activities.

• You may also like these Thanksgiving Dot Painting Free Printables from The Resourceful Mama.
• I also love the free printable Autumn Matching Cards available at Montessori For Everyone. S has particularly enjoyed playing games together especially on Shabbos and once you print and laminate these, they are perfect for playing Memory, Match-it, or What's Missing?

S really loves using our felt wall to play about school when he's at home. I've caught him over there more than once doing "calendar time." It does a teacher-mommy proud! He actually told me recently he wants to be a teacher when he grows up. He thinks that means he will get to go inside a school bus... In the mean time, I pulled out this old Thanksgiving poem fill in the blank activity from my teaching days and set it up by his felt wall along with one of our favorite DIY Thanksgiving games from last year, "Yes, Please and No, Thank You!" S is definitely not reading all of this yet, but I love a print rich environment. We can use it together and he can also enjoy a chance to play at being The Teacher.

To make your own version of "Yes, Please and No, Thank You," you will need to glue (or draw) some pictures of common Thanksgiving foods onto paper plates. You will also need a couple of sentence strips with the phrases "Yes, please!" and "No, thank you!"  written on them. When playing with one "player," he or she can sort all the plates into foods he /she likes/wants to try and those he/she does not like or wish to try.  It's a great way to practice good table manners before the actual meal! With multiple players, children can take turns choosing a food to say "yes, please" to or "no, thank you." You can also practice common table manners like having a child ask "can you please pass the___?" or "would you like to try some____?" 

Even our deep freezer got a Thanksgiving-themed makeover! Indeed, it makes a perfect child-accessible vertical work surface. I brought out an old pin-the-feather-on-the-turkey poster I made a couple of years ago and added in an envelope for spare feathers. I also found this fun magnetic turkey set at the Dollar Tree. 

While Thanksgiving crafts and cooking are two of my favorite things about this season, my very favorite is the opportunity to slow down and enjoy time playing and connecting as a family. I love having a few days together to move at a slower pace, to let the little ones take more of a lead and to admire their sense of wonder, joy and creativity. Whether you "officially" celebrate Thanksgiving or not, hope these days inspire a sense of gratitude and joy and plenty of time for happy playing!

Thanksgiving Theme Wrap-up

We interrupt our usual Mad Science Monday series to bring you one last portion of Thanksgiving-themed fun here before we take off on our family vacation. We are busy celebrating here today. We tend to extend the Thanksgiving season as much as we can in either direction. We actually had our "official" turkey dinner yesterday and today we are celebrating my husband's birthday and the many wonderful attributes he brings to our family that we are truly thankful for! My little one is just at the age that he is kind of grasping this birthday thing--a little more than he did even at his own birthday back in July! Although, when I told him "today is Tatty's birthday" and asked how old he thought his Tatty is, his response was "He's two!" For sure he is referring to the youthful sense of fun and wonder my husband exudes! In addition to some Thanksgiving themed fun around here, we are busy baking, decorating and preparing for a fun family celebration this evening. We may very well still toss in this great science experiment after his nap, though! Here's a peek at some of the other activities we have been doing to learn about and celebrate Thanksgiving. Wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving holiday filled with fun, family time and lots of playing!

We learned about the letter T today. We stamped some letter Ts
onto this turkey and added some Thanksgiving-themed
stickers as well.

 Whenever introducing a new alphabet letter, I sing this little song to the tune of "I Have a Little Dreidel:"

I have a special letter
I wonder what it is
I have a special letter
And it sounds just like this [make letter sound, i.e.: "t-t-t-t"]

Oh [sing letter name, i.e.: "T, T, T"]
It makes a sound like this: [make letter sound](x2)

Then we list some common words beginning with our special letter, many times including props/visuals.

 We both had a lot of fun with this playdough invitation to create a turkey. We used our stash of homemade playdough along with some pipecleaner legs, feathers, cardstock beaks and wattles, google eyes and foam hearts for decorating. Many of these materials will be reintroduced later in an invitation to create a turkey collage that we will try out for our Table Time activity tomorrow.





We also had a great time making and decorating this cute paper plate turkey hat/craft. They are perfect toppers for toddler sized heads or the center of your Thanksgiving table!

Happy Thanksgiving & Happy Playing!

Thanksgiving Theme: A Second Helping

Welcome back to our Thanksgiving themed smorgasbord! As I mentioned before, we do not celebrate Thanksgiving quite in the typical way, but we do have family traditions around it that we look forward to each year. I feel strongly that meaningful celebrations and connections are the most important ingredient on the Thanksgiving menu! One thing we look forward to each year is our family getaway to a favorite location in central, VA. We love countdowns here and this year to count down the days until our upcoming trip, I used a collection of postcards and photographs from our Thanksgiving trip over the past few years. My son is so excited each morning to turn over another picture as we get closer and closer to traveling day! And there is a lot to learn, play about and do together while we wait...

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!

Think Outside the Box: Un-planning and Unwinding

Yoga Time with the Toddler!

We are a family who thrives on routines and when routines change, we strive to find a new normal as quickly as possible! Big and little things can change family routines--holidays, work schedules, season/time changes, traveling, visitors--you name it! These all present wonderful opportunity to teach flexibility and adaptability. Change, however, can also feel unsettling or challenging--particularly to sensitive little ones.
Whenever I have taught outside the home and something is different or suddenly changes, I encourage my students to look for and find the things that are the same. Who are the people that help us that are the same? (This is particularly useful if/when a familiar face is not around or a teacher is absent.) What are the things in the room that are the same that bring us comfort? What are the parts of the day that did not and do not change? I have a particular passion for teaching children flexibility perhaps because I, myself, often struggle with rigidity. I love to know what to expect. I love to plan. I love routine and structure and some might call me a creature of habit. Still, surprises can be fun. So can spontaneity. "Mixing it up a bit" in a safe, secure environment can add just the right spice to life! My husband brings a perfect balance of these qualities to our home and as I see my own son thrive in the routine and the expected (and sometimes grapple with the opposite), I am invited to support him as well as he grows toward flexibility (and so do I)!
Becoming a play-at-home mom this year was a new opportunity to build meaningful routines. My husband's work schedule along with his lengthy commute each day set the pace and the tone. When I started staying home, my son quickly appreciated the additional Mommy time and also began to crave more Tatty (Yiddish: father) time as well. We adjusted evenings to really include a good dose of quality father and son time. They enjoyed walks and building towers and reading, playing and bonding together. We also did things as a family and continued family dinners, but evenings and bedtime routines became very centered around the two of them. This was also a nice respite for me, having been "on" all day at home, and perhaps a nice change of pace for my husband as well, having been in an office all day.
Recently my husband was blessed with the opportunity to begin a teaching job a couple of nights a week in addition to his day job. It is a wonderful opportunity for our family to work toward our goals and plans for the future and we both made some adjustments at home (as well as to his previous work schedule) to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. He has eliminated his commute on the days he works nights as well and works locally instead. This allows him to still have his quality time with our son on those days (and me to have a little break as well). But now, those evenings were Mommy & Me time and even though I totally had this daytime thing down, a few more hours in the evening seemed to stretch endlessly. I found I had no idea what to do with that time other than turn to screens. So I consulted the experts: my husband, my fellow mommies, and Pinterest. And what I found we needed most was not more planning and more activity, but rather, some UNPLANNED time to UNWIND.
Adjusting to our new routine is a work in progress and we always invite the opportunity to go back to the drawing board as necessary. But if you, too, are finding yourself with some hours to fill in your day or evening and aren't quite sure how to fill them, here are some things that are working for us:

Our local library has some great children's
Yoga DVDs. Pinterest has links to great
websites for child-friendly Yoga and
exercise routines as does YouTube. Sometimes
we make up our own as well!

Tonight my son asked to do Yoga. He loves choosing
what color mat to use, watching me light a favorite
scented candle and is now also growing into
performing the poses he sees on the DVDs we use or
by watching me.

Here's an example of a family Activity Bucket List
I created for a workshop on surviving the summer
without school!

• The You-Pick Method: I am such a planner by nature that it never occurred to me to ask my son what he wanted to do with this time together. Several fellow home-preschooling mommies suggested this one, so I tried it. And what do you know? It worked like a charm! Asking my little one what he wants to do with our special time was an empowering experience for us both. He is a bit young yet to ask it in a completely open-ended manner (though I imagine this will be less intimidating as he gets a few more Mommy and Me nights under his belt). I offer a few suggestions and he chooses what we do. I include activities he enjoys that we don't necessarily get to during the day like cooking/baking, Yoga, arts and crafts projects and (YES) movie nights. Larger families can utilize a voting process with predetermined activities or a rotation of who gets to choose. Kids can be involved in creating a family Bucket List--even using an actual bucket with activities written on individual papers inside--of choices for unplanned family time like this. 

This is my U-Pick-a-Project Basket! We do a lot of arts and crafts as part of our preschool experience. I also keep a basket stocked with ready to make projects for open-ended evenings, rainy days, or other unplanned times together. Sometimes I stock up on cute little kits or seasonal projects from the dollar store or discount aisle of the craft store. Other times I save materials from old projects in a ziplock bag. The idea of the U-Pick-a-Project Basket is to have things ready to go that require little to no additional prep. It's not necessarily an invitation for process art (although you could create a basket more conducive to that as well, and rather than including kits and crafts, include materials, small parts and trinkets that can be used for art and creation), It's also a great travel accessory if the projects are not too messy and material-intensive. I plan to bring our Thanksgiving themed collection along on our upcoming family vacation for some festive fun in our spare time.

• About Those Screens: We don't have a television, but we do allow for select videos and shows. While this is not the only thing we do in the evenings or with down time, it is one thing we do. Sometimes that just means snuggling on the couch to a favorite show on Netflix or DVD (I got some awesome Sesame Street snuggles tonight thanks to a DVD my son found at the library). We've also done themed movie/activity nights. We checked out the movie Cars recently after my son got a pair of Lightening McQueen slippers and was curious about it. I wasn't so sure this would be his type of film, but I popped him the bathtub (with some toy cars to splash around with), and got him in his favorite truck pajamas. Next, I helped him carry his bin of toy cars and trucks to the rug and even brought a car riding toy downstairs for him to sit/ride around on in his very own drive-in theater. We popped in the movie and the feature film captivated his undivided attention for about 15 minutes before he mostly had a blast just playing with the movie on in the background!

• PLAY! My son took the lead with this one. He loves to play and even though we are home together, our days are often busy and filled with activities in and out of the house that are more structured. Having a time and space in the day for unhindered play at his discretion is vital. He has toys and books and a whole world of ideas that, when I am lucky, he invites me into! And when we have unplanned unwinding time, I don't feel the ticking of the clock to get dinner ready or be at our next engagement. There's nothing between this moment and bedtime to stop me from getting down with him and joining his game of traffic jam or making a pretend smoothie in his kitchen set or helping him draw a picture of a "big triangle" in his journal because he wants to color it green! 

Some fun baking together--but you don't even have to turn on the oven and get out all of the ingredients in your cupboard! We have just as much fun washing and preparing vegetables, making smoothies or practicing cutting, peeling and grating. And who says it has to be edible? You could whip up a favorite playdough or sensory play recipe instead.

• And once you've joined their world for a bit, invite them into yours! So putting away laundry, washing dishes and making Shabbos dinner might sound like chores to you and me, but even the most daunting tasks are more tolerable fun when shared with the ones you love. My little guy probably wouldn't go for a whole evening of household chores, but he is totally eager to help out (and sometimes hinder a bit) with activities in the kitchen and around the home. Plus, there is such a benefit to including even very young children in age appropriate chores. My little one loves cooking and baking with me (even if he almost never tastes what we make in the end) and he's just as eager to help me transfer laundry, put things away and clean/wash/scrub ANYTHING. I include these activities in our time together so that we can spend time together, rather than me being absent and unavailable to him while I get the housework done. 

We are all adjusting to our new routine and, while I was a bit unsettled in how to plan for these extra hours just the two of us, now I am savoring the gift that is being UNPLANNED in those hours. As much time as I do spend with my little guy during the day and as much as we both love and learn through themed play and home preschooling, I feel very much that these less structured times are the ones where I really get to know the little boy my husband and I are raising. It may not be a specifically Thanksgiving related activity, but it has me feeling thankful nonetheless this time of year and all year through.

And the best way to unwind at the end of a full day? Unplanned snuggles!

Thanksgiving Theme: Some Of Our Favorite Things

These fun little craft stick puppets make a festive addition to
one of our favorite Thanksgiving themed fingerplays,
 "Five Little Turkeys" (printed below)

We do not have a "traditional" Thanksgiving in our home since we already have a Thanksgiving-sized meal every Friday night for Shabbos, but both my husband and I have fond childhood memories of Thanksgiving traditions and have created our own family traditions around the holiday. My husband's birthday is also very close to Thanksgiving and he is a huge fan of the all-American turkey dinner, so we usually have one over a weekend prior to or after Thanksgiving. We also take an annual family getaway over Thanksgiving weekend. While I remember vividly the stories I learned in school about the history of Thanksgiving and the many adorable projects and crafts centered around that, I take issue with teaching misinformation to my own little one and rather focus on some of the kinder aspects of this celebration. Gratitude is something that I feel must be taught and modeled from a young age. I also feel that it is a gift that keeps on giving. Feeling genuine gratitude is by and far one of the key factors that I feel leads to a positive outlook throughout life and an overall sense of resiliency. The ability to tap into feelings of satisfaction with what we already have within and around us is the very best tool to mitigate feelings of anxiety, depression and hopelessness. This, of course, encompasses teaching little ones manners and how to say "please" and "thank-you," but it goes deeper as well. There is a great article here on teaching gratitude to children in age-appropriate ways. In addition to modeling and teaching these concepts this time of year and all year round, Thanksgiving is also an opportunity for us to make cute turkey crafts, sing fun songs and action rhymes and learn through play about the many fun traditions that bring us such nostalgia for our own childhoods this time of year. Here's a peek at a few of our favorites:

We up-cycled some of our old artwork and
a brown paper shopping bag along with some
construction paper scraps to make our family
Thankfulness Turkey. Everyone is in on the
fun of adding feathers to our friend!

When I was still in high school, I volunteered in a preschool summer camp where every Friday morning, the director sang a song about thankfulness with the students. She invited each student to share one thing they were thankful for and incorporated it into the song. Fast forward about 15 years and I adapted the song into my own classroom along with this Thankfulness Jar that the children could write/dictate their thankful feelings on in the morning before stuffing our jar with gratitude. I initially did the activity around Thanksgiving, but it was such a hit that I began to do it every week on Friday mornings and often saved the beautiful sentiments the children had to send home collectively at the end of the school year. My son loves the act of folding up a paper turkey feather for our Thankfulness Turkey and stuffing it in the jar so much that he asked to write more thankfulness notes just to be able to do it again! So at two years old he may not fully have grasped the depth of gratitude that we would eventually aim for (one of his messages was how thankful he feels for the thankfulness jar!) but practice makes perfect and I'm glad he wants to practice. You can sing along, too:

We Are Thankful/Todah Raba

t.t.t.o.: Are You Sleeping

We are thankful, we are thankful

For our friends, for our friends

We are thankful we are thankful

For our friends, for our friends

[and in Hebrew]

Todah Raba, Todah Raba

L'chaverim, L'chaverim

Todah Raba, Todah Raba

L'chaverim, L'chaverim

After we sing the two verses (and I also incorporate sign language for the words "thank you" and "friends" into the song) you can invite your little one(s) one to share thing they feel thankful for and sing about that!

Check out this website for more on this action rhyme
and other fun Thanksgiving activities

This is an activity I prepared last year that survived classroom and toddler use well into this year! For little ones, it's a great way to practice those fine motor skills. My toddler is also at the point where we can make a matching game out of calling a color name and even older kids can enjoy practicing patterns as well.

We are having a lot of fun playing and learning about some of the themes around the Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned for more in the days to come and, as always, happy playing!