Thankful Thanksgiving Crafts

I'm a stealer of ideas this week. But as Andrew says, "There aren't many more original ideas left out there". So I'm doing my part to pass on the good ones. I follow several Blogs of our friends and it is such a fun way to keep up with everyone but also a wealth of ideas.

I stole the Thankful Jar idea from my friend Ginger. When reading her Blog it reminded me of an email that floated around recently about a man that dies and goes to heaven. When he gets there an angel is showing him around and they go to one room that is bustling with activity. The angel explains that it's the "prayer request room". There are dozens of angels taking calls, and emails and filing thousands of correspondence. All prayer requests, needs, and wants sent up to God. They walk down the hall to another room where one angel sits at a desk doing nothing but twiddling his thumbs. The angel then explains to the man how this is the "thankful room" where all the thanks come in for God. This image has stuck with me. I remember all those days and nights fervently sending up prayers to God asking for things, big things. And now I look back and see how he's given them all to me or worked them out even better than I could imagine. How much of my time with God is spent thanking Him for all these blessings? I am committed each day to praise our Father for the wealth of blessings He has given us. So the Thankful Jar sounded like a great idea to me. We are in the midst of another transition that finds us on our knees once again and I don't want to forget the "thanks". The directions are simple...write down what we're thankful for and then every once-in-a-while go read them. Puts the focus back where it should be very quickly. And reminds us that God has taken care of us in the past and will continue to...that's what He does.

Our friend Laura, who is also a blogger, recommended a blog started by a former preschool teacher who is now home with her son. The blog is http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/ . It is full of crafts, songs, books and educational ideas to do with your little ones. Wonderful site that takes advantage of all her experience working with preschoolers for so long. The next few ideas come from her.

The first, are juice box crayons. If you're a regular reader of the M&M Report you'll remember my frustration at the first "masterpieces" that M&M tried to do. Well I thought that these big chunky crayons might make it easier. Fun to do and easier for little hands to manipulate. The directions for these are here http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/search?q=juice+box+crayons. OK, so they still tried to eat them. Oh well!

I also tried the muffin tin crayons with the left over colors. She explains the process here http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2008/02/readers-corner-try-this-at-home.html. This was even easier and is a great idea if you have a bunch of little pieces of used up crayons.

So the final craft idea is the Handprint paper plate turkeys which is a variation of her idea here http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2008/11/turkey-take-two.html. I just used M&M's handprints for the tail feathers instead.

All in all it was a successful craft time and now we have Thanksgiving centerpieces. Hope everyone has a THANKFUL THANKSGIVING from Andrew, Cece, Michael and Mary Ellen!