Expressing Thanks

For FHE, we decided to finally finish our Christmas thank you's (better late than never!).  My husband and I really want to help our children to cultivate gratitude.  Writing thank you notes is a simple and important part of becoming a more grateful family.

I wanted my boys to feel like they had a large part in the process, so I had them create part of the card art.  The inspiration for this project came from this post on the Frugal Family Fun Blog.

Before dinner, I prepped the project.  I marked off 4x5 squares with my ruler on a large sheet of white construction paper.  I taped off small rectangles in the center of my marked off boxes before painting to create a gift box after the paint dried.

I helped the boys watercolor the construction paper.  We just used our cheapie watercolor sets that were on hand.  I let them choose one color to use, and then I also had them use one complimentary color to go along with theirs.  Mr. One chose green (of course) and Mr. Two chose yellow.  I had Mr. One use blue as well and Mr. Two use red.  This was a lot of painting for them, so we didn't finish the whole sheet of paper.  A little tip, use lots of water to spread the paint out.

We ate dinner while their paint dried.  Then, we peeled off the tape (Mr. One loved doing this and seeing the white rectangle appear).  I cut the squares and glued them on colored copy paper to make our cards.  Then I took a black thin marker and outlined the box, added a bow on top and the words "thank you" to the bottom.

 

For FHE, Mike read a scripture from the Bible about gratitude, Psalms 95:2.  We talked about having thankful hearts and how we gain happiness as we thank others.

Then, the writing commenced.  Luckily, we didn't have too many thank you's to write.  We had the boys sign their names and tell us why they liked their gifts.  It felt good to express our thanks and to give our boys the opportunity to practice gratitude.