Turkey Collage with Dried Beans

While searching for Thanksgiving crafts that we hadn't done yet, I came across this cute variation on a hand print turkey and decided it was perfect entertainment for my little turkeys.

Materials:

• paper plate
• marker
• dried beans or pasta
• white glue (optional)

Directions:

1. Trace your child's hand onto a paper plate. If desired, add a beak, wattle, and legs to the turkey. Older kids can do this step themselves.
2. Give your child some dried beans or pasta. We used kidney beans, navy beans, black beans, pinto beans, split peas, and spiral pasta. Popcorn kernels are another option. I put each kind of bean into its own bowl, but you could mix them all together if you prefer. 
3. Kids can either decorate their turkey and glue down their design to make it permanent, or they can arrange and re-arrange the turkey as many times as they want, skipping the glue.

Thanksgiving in a Word

I was a teensy bit nervous about hosting our first Thanksgiving dinner this year, completely absorbed in the food preparation (which admittedly involved many shortcuts, but that is a whole other story). Everyone enjoyed the meal, but after the leftover food was all put away and the family had headed home, I realized that we had never talked to our kids about what Thanksgiving means. Mia quickly figured out that a lot of food is involved in the celebration, and she knows that we (try to) pray before each meal, but we didn't specifically teach what it means to be thankful. Of course, gratitude isn't a one-day-a-year sort of thing, so I hope to make up for this. After being inspired by imanimama to come up with a single word to explain what I am most thankful for this holiday season, I have decided that I have many...

BLESSINGS