Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I thought today would be a great day to share with you a wonderful schoolwide project happening this season at T’s campus: The Thankful Thoughts Tree.

The bare branches of our school’s Thankful Thoughts Tree.

Our school’s PTA planted and grew this tree last week. Well, they didn’t exactly grow the entire thing. See, it was just a few awesome people who put up the trunk and branches of the tree (and had no fear of working from the top of an 8-foot ladder!), and then all of the school’s students, teachers, and staffers were invited to contribute a leaf to the tree with a personal expression of thanks.

Here I am organizing our classroom’s Thankful Thoughts leaves for the school’s Thankful Thoughts Tree.

Just one small handful of leaves that went onto our school’s Thankful Thoughts Tree.

And approximately 400 leaves later (396 to be exact… I know that as I punched out all of those leaves myself), a tree grew in Naples.

T’s leaf is near the center of the photo just below the dolphin’s fin (it’s also orange, of course). Can you see it?

What a wonderful group project a Thankful Thoughts Tree would be for any community, be it a home, school, business, or recreation center (for youth or for seniors). And why limit this type of project to November? I know that our school has plans to revitalize the tree come spring with green and yellow leaves with even more expressions of gratitude. Giving thanks isn’t seasonal, RMT’ers.

T’s class’ “Grateful Gobbler” just outside of his Kindergarten classroom. Kudos to Andrea and Tina, two of our classroom’s volunteers, for building up this beautiful bird outside of our classroom. Gobble Gobble!

I swear I feed T enough. These growing kids I tell you!

Or, if a tree seems too large of a scale for your group, why not do a “Grateful Gobbler” instead. I nicknamed T’s classroom turkey this anyway since we already had a Thankful Thoughts Tree at school, so a Thankful Turkey just seemed redundant (but that works, too!). Here, instead of leaves, kids can write their notes of thanks on a feather that then becomes part of the turkey’s tail. And, oh, I don’t know why it couldn’t be a “Praiseful Peacock” come springtime; again, these sentiments aren’t seasonal.

If you don’t have a large group to gather in gratitude this season for the larger projects pictured here, your kids can make their own individual family trees for Thanksgiving! You need one brown paper lunch bag, scissors, glue, and some leaves (pre-made or DIY from construction paper). First, take the paper bag and cut 1″ strips down about half the length of the bag starting from the opening BUT cut while the bag is still closed. Next, open the bag and twist the strips into branches. Then glue as many leaves to the branches as there are members of the family. These make wonderful centerpieces or tabletop decorations for the holiday. Another shout-out of thanks to our school’s PTA for this wonderful art project they ran with the kids during “Lunch Art Bunch (LAB)” earlier this month.

I hope you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving holiday filled with gratitude, beauty, and love. Cheers!

While I didn’t blog a thankful post of my own this year, I did compile a list last year. Much hasn’t changed, which isn’t too surprising (though I am on a no-coffee, no-gym kick right now and am drinking green tea and one juice daily instead, which is an even trade-off and quite surprising for anyone who knows how much I drank coffee!). You can reflect on what I’m thankful for and what T was thankful for at this time last year. And while it goes without saying, I’m saying it anyway… THANK YOU RMT’ers for all of your continued readership. I’m fairly insignificant without your ongoing support. xo