Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is a great time to get together with family and celebrate the many things that you are thankful for. There are a lot of different, fun activities that you can do on thanksgiving day with your family to help you remember the things you are thankful for. These are especially fun to do while everyone is sitting around the table eating dinner and talking.

*Thanksgiving bingo (a favorite for my family)
*Thanksgiving pictionary
*Go around the dinner table and have people say 5 (or however many things you want) things they are thankful for this year
*Go around the dinner table and have people
*Make a thanksgiving snack mix where each item in the mix represents something you are thankful for
*Have young children color a picture of something they are thankful for
*Sing some thanksgiving songs
*Volunteer at a food bank etc.
*Go shopping on black friday for items to donate to an organization/family in need

Thanksgiving

"Thank You"

Lesson

“There are two little words in the English language that perhaps mean more than all others,” says President Gordon B. Hinckley. “They are ‘thank you’ ” (“A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth,” Ensign, Jan. 2001, 4).

Ask: “why do you think these words are so meaningful? “do you feel good when someone tells you “thank you”? why?

Discuss ways in your own home you can show gratitude. Take time to tell each member of the family why you are grateful for them and the things they do. Take turns doing this.

It is important to say thank you; in fact, we are commanded to be thankful. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord says, “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things” (D&C 59:7)..

Ask: “how do we show Heavenly Father and Jesus we are thankful for all they do for us?”

-We show Heavenly Father and Jesus that we are grateful to Them by keeping Their commandments. When we are baptized, we show obedience to the Lord. When we read the scriptures, we show that we are thankful to have the word of God. When we partake of the sacrament reverently, we are showing our gratitude for Jesus Christ’s Atonement.

Challenge

challenge the family to say a “thankful prayer”. When they get on their knees to pray tonight encourage them to take one prayer to only give thanks and not ask for anything. Tell the children they will discover they have SO MUCH to be thankful for!

Activity

Make Gratitude Journals for each child. Take time for them to write all the things they are grateful for. Encourage them to keep the journal somewhere they can see. This way when they have a bad day they can get it out and be reminded of all the things they have to be thankful for. Also, as they think of more things to be grateful for they can add it to their journal.

or

Using a box or other materials, make a simple replica of a home. Tell the children that the box represents a home and ask them to name some of the things in their homes that they are grateful for. Before FHE, prepare wordstrips for the older children and pictures for the younger children of things that are in the homes. Inside a box have the wordstrips or pictures such as “bed,” “sofa,” “scriptures,” and “sink.” Also include family members and possibly pets. When the children have guessed all of the things that are in the box, show them the empty box but explain that some of the most important things in a home cannot be seen. Help them name intangible things such as “love,” “the gospel,” and “gratitude.” Explain that our homes are happier when we are grateful.

Song

“I Am Glad for Many Things” (p. 151).

"Thank You"

Thanksgiving

Song: Hymn 94 Come, Ye Thankful People

Scripture: 1 Nephi 13:12-19 Nephi tells of the Gentiles coming to America.

Lesson: Tell the story of the pilgrims coming to America to escape religious persecution. Thanksgiving is a holiday we celebrate because of the gratitude the pilgrims felt for finding a new land where they could worship freely.

Discussion: Each member of the family share something he or she is thankful for.

Activity: Think of a person outside of the family who you are thankful for. Brainstorm some way you can show this person your gratitude for him/her i.e. take cookies to the home teachers, draw a picture and mail it to grandma, write a note to the bishop, rake a neighbor's leaves, etc.

Thanksgiving

Families are important. If you didn't think so, you probably wouldn't be coming here for FAMILY home evening ideas. There are many family trees out there. I love this idea from a creative blogger. Have your children help pick out the materials for the tree, set the tree up take the picture, and then help them fill in the bubbles. Explain how a family tree works, going into as much depth as you feel appropriate for your children. Most importantly, have fun! And don't forget to sing, " Families Can Be Together Forever" from the children's Primary Song Book.

How to Make a Unique Family Tree
Taken from http://milasdaydreams.blogspot.com/

Families fit rarely into ready sablons, so when I tried to fill our family tree for Mila's baby book I noticed it would be better to make our own tree. Then you can make it as wide as you like, or just choose those closest relatives.

You need:

- blanket or other fabric to be a tree trunk and grass

- 3-4 colored paper napkins for leaves.

- Paper plates, as many as close relatives. Tip: if you like ornaments a lot, use white paper lace!

+ what ever you like to decorate your tree. Is your family tree full of paper hearts, real fruits, candles, or personal items to symbol your family members.

The building tree is easier if you make a first draft to paper. Use just names and list them in a form of tree. Start from to top of tree and put there the baby, then parents, grandparents etc. Add siblings. Just like you would draw a mind map.

When you are building an actual tree, notice that you can use the bigger plates for close relatives and smaller ones for the siblings. If you have a huge family, aunts and cousins don't need a plate, you can use smaller symbols, or cut smaller round circles from light colored paper/ paper napkins. Make tree leaves from napkins. Just twofold them and cut from the fold half of leaf, so you get multiple leaves from one cut when you separate the layers of napkin.

Photo example with teddy bears

After taking your photo, you may adjust color & lighting and add names or photographs in the picture by photoshop. If you use elliptical marquee-tool, you can get round headshot cut out from pictures. In my version those bigger plates are good for about 85x85pixels photos and smaller ones 60x60pixels. Pictures don't have to be perfectly round. You can also print photo out and add relatives by hand writing.

Example with photoshop names.

And voilà, personal and unique Family Tree is ready!

PS you can also add ancestors in the "roots" if you like. Just make a rocks or little signs there to make a space for the info.

In our family tree there would be many Viking kings from Norway, King Gustav I of Sweden, Jaakko Ilkka, Finnish leader of the Peasant Rebellion and from my side there's just a big bunch of simple farmers from North Karelia. Well, maybe few of my greatgreatgreat uncles and distant cousins have been artist and painters, but that's it. And probably there has been some finnish pagans before northern crusade. So I began to feel that this great offspring of noble savages has stolen this simple Karelian maid, and history still repeats itself...haha.

Thankful Basket

This is an activity we did last year, and we will be repeating it this year. It is quite a simple way to help teach your children (and remind yourself!) about being thankful for what you have.

November is a logical time of year to do this activity since it is Thanksgiving, but there is never a wrong time to focus on gratitude.

PREPARATION

• Get a basket or some other container
• Cut up small pieces of paper

LESSON

Opening Song Ideas

• A Song of Thanks (Children's Songbook page 20)
• Father, We Thank Thee for the Night (CSB page 8)
• For Health and Strength (CSB page 21)
• For Thy Bounteous Blessings (CSB page 21)
• I am Glad for Many Things (CSB page 151)
• I am Thankful to Be Me (CSB page 11)
• I Thank Thee Dear Father (CSB page 7)
• A Song of Thanks (CSB page 20)
• Thanks to our Father (CSB page 20)
• Thanks to Thee (CSB page 6)
• Thank Thee, Father (CSB page 24)
• Thank Thee for Everything (CSB page 10)
• Count Your Blessings (Hymn number 241)
• Prayer of Thanksgiving (Hymn number 93)

Scripture Ideas

D&C 62:7--I, the Lord, am willing, if any among you desire to ride upon horses, or upon mules, or in chariots, he shall receive this blessing, if he receive it from the hand of the Lord, with a thankful heart in all things.

D&C 78:19--And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.

Thankful Basket

Introduce the Thankful Basket (you could also call it a "Blessing Basket"). Explain that each night, each person is going to tell something they are thankful for. They (or mom or dad if the person is too little) will then write it down on a paper and put it in the basket. 

At Thanksgiving, you can look and see the many things your family has to be grateful for. 

Whenever you first start an activity like this, it can be hard to think of something new after the standard answers have been used up. But you soon find that it is hard to stop thinking of the blessings you have once you start to focus on them.

Thankful Basket