Counting Down to Thanksgiving

As you know, I always do a countdown calendar each year to Halloween and then Christmas, with a special activity or recipe planned for each day. I'd like to count down to Thanksgiving, but have always thought another calendar like my others would be too redundant. Happily, this year my friend gave me a great idea for a countdown to Thanksgiving!

Basically, everyday of November up until Thanksgiving, each person in your family writes down one thing they are thankful for and adds it to a pocket in the calendar! My friend made a homemade calendar to use that is so cute! You can read about hers on her blog:

Life Sprinkled With Glitter

I decided to use a pre-existing countdown calendar that my mom made for me a few years ago. It has an animal theme so we use it for any countdown we want, like birthdays and the first day of school. Ours has thirty pockets, so we just used some number stickers to label the ones we needed. This was a fun counting activity with my daughter, Molly (4). On the 24th pocket, we put a turkey sticker, and I let her decorate the top with more Thanksgiving themed stickers.

We cut construction paper into skinny strips, and chose a different color for each family member. My daughter loves using her scissors so I drew 23 lines on her paper for her to cut. Later, she decided to make hers into confetti so I just made a new set for her! We did a color for myself, Molly (4), Ben (1), and Daddy. Now each day we write down one thing we are thankful for and add it to our calendar. On Thanksgiving, we'll be able to read off everything we're thankful for! (I just choose things for Ben, such as his bottle and not being sick anymore!) THANK YOU, COLLEEN for such a great idea!!


Oh! Remember the confetti that Molly cut out? After having a mini celebration, and then making it snow in our living room, she used them like mosaics and made a picture!! I had to snap a picture and share it because I was so proud that my little 4-year old came up with such a great activity!