Family Friday: Thanksgiving Wreath
Welcome to a new feature of the Day Camp Blog: “Family Fridays.” In these posts, we’ll be sharing activities (and other things of interest) to the families of Day Campers, to help you engage in the Christian life as a family, especially as we live through the seasons of the Christian year. Family Fridays are hosted by Anna Irish: you can reach her with your ideas or comments at lambspuppets@gmail.com.
As thanksgiving approaches, our young ones are almost sure to come home from school with a turkey craft or two. While turkeys are a lot of fun (and I can’t help liking a good turkey craft myself), they don’t tell us all that much about giving thanks! Here is a (fairly) simple wreath craft that can help your family put the focus back on thanking God for all the wonderful gifts he has given us! (Keep reading to the bottom for some variations to make it even simpler).
Materials: bristol board, leaves, paints, paint brushes or sponges, scissors, glue, ribbon or string, pen, hole punch and stapler, brown card (optional).
Cut a large ring out of bristol board. Gather some leaves (this is a great opportunity to enjoy a walk together, and intentionally appreciate the beauty of God’s creation as a family). On the leftover bristol board, make prints of the leaves. I find that the easiest way to get the paint on the leaves is to use a sponge (I have small sponges on sticks that I found at a Dollar store), but you can also use paint brushes. When the paint has dried, cut the printed leaves out and glue them onto the wreath. Cut some acorns (or any shape you like) out of the brown card (or bristol board), and write on them things that you are thankful for. Glue these onto the wreath as well. Make a cross out of card or bristol board, and use some string or ribbon to hang it in the middle of the wreath and hang up the wreath as well (I punched a hole in the cross and one in the wreath, threaded the ribbon through the holes and stapled it to the wreath to fix it in place. As you work on the wreath, discuss with your children that God is the source of all the things we are thankful for, and that he himself is what we are most thankful for!
Variations: for an even simpler craft, paint a cross in the middle of a sheet of bristol board, make leaf prints around it, and write something you are thankful for under each leaf. To make a wreath you could also do leaf rubbings instead of prints, or even trace the leaves onto colored paper (or even scrapbooking paper), or just draw your own leaves.