A Preschool Thanksgiving

Upon a time 

once not too long ago

my dear friend heard my heart

saying it missed having wee ones around

to home school

for homeschooling the tiny

is such a delight.

I said

it will be a joy

to someday have grandchildren

with whom I can teach and create

for I am a home schooler at heart

and will always be

no matter how old my own children grow.

Upon hearing such spoken words

she turned on the light

in my world of too-old-for-finger-painting children

and beckoned me 

to share my love for beauty, homeschooling and wee ones

with the precious 

who although not my own

frequently pitter patter their chubby feet

through my homey home.

So an adventure with the young we had

my boys and I....

******

We began our Thanksgiving Adventure
under our 'church tent' in our England

singing songs of thankfulness

clapping, stomping and raising our hands

until King James 

told us we could no longer sing our songs.

Here is my King James:

Since we don't want to stop singing our songs,
we made boats

making sure to draw pictures on them

of all the things we would put on our boats
if we were sailing away from King James
and his England.

Then we sailed our boats into my living room America

where we found a village built of Lincoln Logs

(thanks to my older boys)

and some wild corn

for that is what the pilgrims found in the new world.

After playing in our new found America for a while

we noticed how hungry we were

for kids are pretty much always hungry

but there was no food

other than that hard old corn

when Squanto came in to help us.

Here is my Squanto:

He showed us how to plant corn with fish

(goldfish crackers, that is)

in his garden out side

so we could have more food to eat.

Squanto showed the pilgrims how to pop popcorn, too.

My Squanto gave each a bag of caramel corn I made the night before.

I know.

They probably didn't have caramel corn

but we did:

Since the Indians helped us so,

when our food grew

we made a feast to share together.

We made apple turnovers.

We ate them:

 

After walking through the Thanksgiving story,

we made a few more projects

like this turkey picture

where hands were colorfully painted 

to make a turkey print.

Each mom wrote down their child's thankful words:

 

 

We made a corn bracelet:

 

(hint. it's not as easy as one would think to get holes in corn.
poke holes ahead of time after soaking kernels
or for your entertainment
have the big boys use a drill.)

and a 'give thanks' banner
(hint. glue seeps through felt. use a cool hot glue gun??!!?)

We read this simply beautiful picture book walking us through our pilgrim adventure:

A story was told
and many thankful words were spoken today
for we were reminded that there is much we have to be thankful for.

*****

May you all have a few quiet moments this week
to sit with the young in your life
showing them the many ways they too are blessed.