Our Gratitude Tree

This year I decided to do a gratitude tree at home.  We started it on November 1st and we plan on doing it until Thanksgiving.  Ro likes the idea so much she is lobbing for...ever, but that's a lot of paper leaves to cut so I'm thinking until Thanksgiving.

I love the idea of practicing gratitude, if you are a regular reader you have probably read my Gratitude Sunday Posts. I feel that talking about and thinking about what we are thankful for it is a good reminder and it helps keep our gratefulness at the forefront of our thoughts.  Anyway with my family, we try start dinner each night by going around the table and each saying something that we are thankful for that day. For this November I wanted this visual reminder of what we have to be thankful for, so tada a tree! The kids love doing things like this and I think it's a nice way to talk about what they value in their days.

There are about a million ideas for gratitude trees on pinterest, I love the look of the newspaper trees, and the trees with real branches in vases.  But for us, I wanted to keep it simple and use the materials I had available at home, Ro and I cut our leaves from construction paper and made the tree with washi tape on a wall that the kids can reach easily.

I love that Rowan wants to write hers all by herself and Zo usually has a lengthy list that he dictates to me.  They have been asking to "do their leaves" first thing in the morning which is nice, I had imagined ending the day with it, but starting the day with it is a sweet way to start.