Gratitude Tree Activity for a Thankful Thanksgiving

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This is a super simple (and fun!) gratitude tree activity to help you get into the thankful spirit this Thanksgiving by focusing on gratitude and thankfulness with your kids.

Get into the spirit even more with these Thanksgiving Conversation Starters.

We did it for the first time last year, my older girls were 6 and 4. They loved it so much that I knew we had to do it again.

Here is our finished Thanksgiving Thankful Tree of Gratitude activity from last year.

All you need to do this Gratitude Tree Activity:

a brown paper grocery bag (or whatever material you will use to make your tree)
construction paper in fall colors
tape
scissors
pencil

How do you make a gratitude tree?

We used a paper grocery bag to create our tree.

If you don’t have one on hand there are lots of other options: you could use brown construction paper, draw or paint a tree on a really big piece of paper, or even use lightweight cardboard (like a cereal box). Use whatever you have on hand.

Last year, I did most of the activity prep work creating the Gratitude Tree for Thanksgiving. But this year, at 7 and 5, I felt like Izzie and Emma were ready to take more ownership of the project.

Cut Out the Bare Tree Parts for the Base of the Thankful Activity

They took turns cutting the sides out of a paper grocery bag to form the tree trunk for our gratitude tree activity.

Izzie (7) then drew branch shapes on the remainder of the bag and Emma (5) cut them all out.

Then they worked together to tape the Gratitude Tree trunk and branches to our basement door.

Lots of Fine Motor Skills at work, cutting out leaves!

I helped them trace leaf shapes onto the construction paper.

If you aren’t confident in your free hand drawing leaf shapes you can easily use a free leaf template. Simply print it right onto the colored paper, or trace it!

Let the kids cut out a bunch of leaves in different fall colors. Help them if it becomes too much.

Izzie made a sign out of the last piece of the grocery bag that says, “We Are Thankful For…” and hung it above the tree.

We keep the leaves, a pen and tape in a baggie.

Add to the Gratitude Tree Every Day

Every morning in November we add to the activity!

Each of us writes something we are thankful for on a leaf. Then we hang it on the gratitude tree.

Last year, I didn’t include Hannah but now that she is almost 3. I think she is old enough to talk about it in basic terms. What makes her happy? Also, her sisters get so into it that she will be excited too.