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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Explaining Thanksgiving/Being Thankful to Preschoolers
Christina72684 07:02 AM 11-12-2014
Do you talk much about Thanksgiving? Do you explain anything? I think I'm just going to talk about being thankful for things, but I'm not even sure how to do that. I've briefly mentioned that if you really, really like or love something/someone then you are thankful for them. Like I said I really, really like my family, so I am thankful for them. Any other suggestions?
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laloolee 08:55 AM 11-12-2014
I have been reading this book on or near Thanksgiving the past few years and it is my favorite children's book for the season.

http://www.worldcat.org/title/thanks...=brief_results

"Everyone knows that Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks—the question is, where to begin? From the turkey on the table to warm, cozy cuddles, life is full of small things and bigger pleasures. But what is most important is being able to share them with family!"
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Soccermom 09:02 AM 11-12-2014
We just celebrated Thanksgiving here in Canada a few weeks ago.

We did some Thankful Turkeys for the kids to bring home and place on their dining table.

It was a toilet paper roll cut in half, covered and made to look like a turkey. His tail was made of different colors of paper. I had the kids tell me 5 things that made them very happy and I wrote one on each tail feather.

They named things like - My mommy, my toys, my bed, my cat.....

We talked a lot about Thanksgiving being the day where we think about all the things we have that make us happy and how lucky we are to be able to share a big meal with the people we love the most just like the pioneers.

We read a book I had gotten from the library about the first Thanksgiving and that is as far as I went into detail about it
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Unregistered 10:13 AM 11-12-2014
The explanation sounds pretty much the same as I do, and we do various Thanksgiving crafts, not always turkeys because I have vegetarian families.
The one thing we do every year is a list of the things we are thankful for. We use a large sheet of paper that can be posted on the door, and a different color marker for each child. At pick-up time, parents can often spot one thing that they know their child said, and then read all of the other "yellows" or "blues" to see what else they said.
Parents love it, and it really helps the younger children understand the concept as the older children list things. If they can't get started, I help with an easy topic, like "people you are thankful for" or "foods you are thankful for". Some kids come up with great stuff that you wouldn't expect.
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Christina72684 10:58 AM 11-12-2014
Thanks for the advice! Crafts are the easy part, it's explaining why that's difficult lol
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therov 12:21 PM 11-12-2014
I find Thanksgiving to be one of the easiest holidays to explain, since thankfulness is something kids are doing every day. :-)
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