Hi Everyone!
Thank you, Annette, for having me over to guest post this morning! I am thankful that project gratitude has inspired a new tradition for my family: Thankful Thoughts. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, I find it hard to build in activities and start conversations about thankfulness with my preschooler, so I thought about making a chalkboard to display different names in our family and community. This way we can think about that person throughout the day and come up with unique ways to show our gratitude towards the amazing people in our life!
Here’s how we did it:
I started with some chalkboard paint and a wooden board that I bought at our local craft store for around $3. Then, I started painting.
I painted the board twice in order to get a nicely covered surface. Then, I wrote out the names of our family members on my computer so that I could see the total number of names. I added members of the community like firefighters, policemen, and teachers, to fill in the gaps so that I would have enough names for each day in November.
I added each name to a popsicle stick so that we could draw a name each morning.
My daughter was excited to see who our first person would be!
Although she can’t read yet, she examined the word to try and to figure out the name. The lucky winner of the first draw was her Granddad! We talked about how we can think about Granddad throughout the day and I asked my daughter if there was something that we could do to show him that we are grateful for him. She said, “an e-mail!” My daughter often sends e-mails to her Granddad as a way to stay connected with him.
She got to work quickly (she loves to type on the computer and send e-mails to her Grandparents!). She even dictated some thankful thoughts for me to type to him. She said: “I hope you have a nice day” and I’m thankful for you because “you play with me.” 🙂
I can’t wait to see which name we will draw next! I love that this board leaves it open for us to come up with different ways to think about the people in our lives. I anticipate that many of our loved ones will be getting e-mails, paintings, letters, and pictures from our family this month. The chalkboard inspires us to stay grateful for others and to think thankful thoughts every day!
[…] From a Typical Mom share some great tips for a thankful chalkboard and another great idea for sharing your thanks with your neighbors. Our friends at Feelgood Style […]