Always help your children understand the holiday you are celebrating.  Have fun telling the story of the first Thanksgiving and acting it out with Indian headbands and Pilgrim hats.

Click here for a coloring book you can download and print that gives a simple explanation of the first Thanksgiving.  Talk about each page as you color.

The following sites have patterns for pilgrim hats and Indian headbands:

http://crafts.kaboose.com/pilgrim-hat-for-girls.html

http://crafts.kaboose.com/pilgrim-hat-for-boys.html

http://www.theholidayspot.com/thanksgiving/crafts/indian.htm

I am thankful for all of you who follow my blog and have a desire to train up your children according  to Scripture.   Thank you to family and friends who continue to encourage me to post.  Thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for all things!!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Take a walk around the house or outside and point out things you are thankful for.  Turn it into a prayer of thanks as you say “Thank you God for”  and name each thing.  You can also take pictures of these things and put them in a thank you box that you can decorate together.  Each night you can pull out a picture and thank God for it. You can include in your box pictures of family and friends to be thankful for.  Older children may want to draw pictures or make a thank you notebook.  These activities are for the whole family.  You never get too old to be thankful for the things and people around you.

Click on the link to hear a song you can use to sing your thank you’s as you walk. I apologize for the quality. . . it is from a 32 year old tape . . . but you can still get the tune and the idea.

13-we-are-glad-today

No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. 1Thes. 5:18 (NLT)

A form of the word “thanks” occurs about 150 times in Scripture making it very evident that God values thankful hearts

Being thankful is a choice.  If it were not a choice, God wouldn’t be commanding us to be thankful.  The pilgrims chose to be thankful after their first year in America even though they experienced sickness, deaths, and various hardships. In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln chose to declare that “the last Thursday in November be a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens.”

When we choose to be thankful, our spirits are lifted.  We can not be discouraged and thankful at the same time.  We can not teach our children to be thankful when we are ungrateful.  As in everything, we lead by example.

“Reflect upon your present blessings – of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”- Charles Dickens

How’s your thank you list going?  Regularly writing down what you are thankful for can increase your level of happiness by at least 25%.   I have always believed that an attitude of gratitude is vital to your happiness and your health because of what Scripture indicates. (Proverbs 17:22 “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength” is just one example.)

However, Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier offers scientific evidence of this and that a grateful spirit actually improves your health: “The person who experiences gratitude is able to cope more effectively with everyday stress  . . . recover more quickly from illness, and benefit from greater physical health.”   I haven’t read the book yet, but I am always thrilled when scientists discover the reality of what Scripture has always said.  Read more of the research results here.

I read Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy this year as I was going through a difficult time in my life.   The book was a fresh reminder to concentrate on being thankful, which did tremendously help me cope with my circumstances at the time.   God doesn’t just tell us to do something for no reason.  He has our best interest in mind when He says, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thes. 5:18

Let’s teach our children early to have an attitude of gratitude, not just so we look good when they utter an unsolicited thank you to the waitress , but so that throughout their lives they will experience all the positive effects of thankfulness that God intends for them.

Use the Bible to make your children aware of people who thanked God.  The first Bible story that comes to mind that has to do with thanks is the story of the Ten Lepers in Luke 17:11-19.  Ten lepers came to Jesus and were healed, but only one came back to say thank you.  At Amazon.com you can buy an Arch book about this entitled He Remembered to Say Thank You.    Our children loved the Arch Books as they tell the Bible stories in rhyme and the pictures are very colorful. There are many Bible stories available in the Arch Series.

The story of Hannah A Mother Who Prayed (also an Arch books) is an example of thankfulness as she earnestly prayed for a child and when God answered her prayer, she gave Him thanks. This story is found in 1 Samuel 1 and 2.

The Psalms are full of David’s thank yous.  And Paul talks often of his thankfulness for various things.

If you don’t have the books, read the stories in the Bible for yourself, and then tell them in your own words with expression.  Be creative and use visuals.  For example for the Ten Lepers you can make 10 paper dolls with dots all over them on one side and then flip them over  to reveal the spots are all gone when you talk about Jesus healing them.  Have all of them leave, and then one of them comes back to thank Jesus.

Check out Alan Melton’s list of 10 really good habits to develop for correcting your children.

http://www.disciplelikejesus.com/blog/?p=370

About the 1st of November, I always put a large piece of paper on the refrigerator  with the words, “Thank you God for” at the top.  Family members are encouraged to regularly write down something they are thankful for.  This has been a tradition for many years in our home. We enjoy writing our own and reading what the rest of the family has written.

This year we are separated from most of our children so my husband had the idea to make a google document that we can all add to – great idea, Billy!!  If you are separated from your family, you might consider the same thing. If you aren’t familiar with how to do that, you can get step by step instructions at  http://tinyurl.com/2fqacyb

Writing down your blessings can really change your outlook.  As the old hymn by Johnson Oatman says, “Count your many blessings; name them one by one; and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.”

(This is another lesson from Here a Little, There a Little,.  It was designed to spend a week memorizing the Psalm and reinforcing it through 5 activities.)

Thanksgiving

Help your child memorize Psalm 100 by finding pictures to illustrate the verses.

Psalm 100 – A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands!

Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before His presence with singing.

Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise.

Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

For the Lord is good;  His mercy is everlasting,

And His truth endures to all generations.

Prayer: Thank you for all you have given us and all you do for us.  Help us to always have a grateful attitude toward You and others.

Activities for younger preschooler:

Laugh and sing a lot

Sing and smile while changing his diaper or dressing him and talk about being happy to serve him.

Show a picture of sheep – let him feel wool.  Talk about being God’s lamb that He takes care of.

Take a day and give thanks for every little thing: toothbrush, clean sheets, water, soap, diapers, etc.

Start a thank you box of pictures of things to be thankful for.  Show them as you say, “Thank you God for ______”

Activities for older preschoolers:

Laugh and sing a lot

Talk about the fact that serving God is really serving others.  Do an act of service with a cheerful spirit. (rake leaves, bake and share cookies, or simply tie his shoe and talk about how you are happy to serve him.)

Find a picture of a sheep, mount it on cardboard, then cut it into a puzzle.  Talk about how we belong to God and He cares for us as the shepherd cares for his sheep.

Take a day and give thanks for every little thing: toothbrush, clean sheets, water, soap, crayons, etc.

Make a thank you box by filling a box with pictures of things and people to be thankful for.  Each night let him pull out a few and lead him to tell God thank you.

Songs:
see and hear these at http://www.trainupthechild.org/2010/11/09/keeping-thanks-in-thanksgiving-songs/

We Are Thankful (tune of Are You Sleeping)

We’re Glad Today

We’ve Got So Much

Psalm 100 says to enter God’s presence with thanksgiving and singing.  Here are some easy songs for children to to do just that:

Click on this link SoMuch to hear a fun, thankful song that the children love.   I couldn’t remember exactly how it went so I called our good friend and minister of music, Scott Eaton, and got him to sing it over the phone.  Start with your hands together and as you sing the song pull them further and further apart until your arms are wide open.  Bring your hands back together in a big clap before the last phrase.

You can sing this next song to  the tune of :”Frere Jacques” also known as “Are You Sleeping?”  Sing it with hands folded in prayer and head bowed:

We are thankful
We are thankful
Yes we are
Yes we are
Thankful for our food
Thankful for our family
Give God thanks
Give God thanks

Here’s another easy song: