Notes of Thanksgiving

 I have always done a Christmas countdown with my children... but last year my friend pointed me towards an idea for the month of November as well. I have been wanting to do an activity of Thanksgiving with them for awhile now and I decided this would be a great way to do it! I was inspired by this idea and came up with my own plan for a "Give Thanks" board. 

Most of the time when I get a wild hair and decide to create something "crafty" I try to come up with things around the house to use instead of going out to the store and spending more money! So, even though this probably could have looked cuter and been laid out better, I am happy that I could do it with little-to-no cost!

I found a piece of wood in my husband's shop and painted it red. We had some leftover paint from the quart I bought to paint my front door. Since it was red paint, it did require several coats... but it was small and they dried fast! I used a foam paintbrush so that I wouldn't have any brush strokes on the surface.
 

I measured and cut out 30 little pockets out of scraps of scrapbooking cardstock. If you don't know how to cut out envelopes, here is a website that may help you figure it out. Or if you are blessed to have a Cricut, there are several cartridges with envelope designs. Also there are manilla coin envelopes if you want to spend the money but save your time!

I attached them to the board and then added sticker numbers from 1 to 30 for the days of the month. Then I cut more scraps of paper in fall colors and slipped them into each pocket.

Each day in November I will ask my kids to take turns writing something they are thankful for on the papers and we will stick them in the pockets.
 

Pictured with the papers already inserted in each pocket.

Can you tell that my daughter is saying "cheese"? She just learned that one...

p.s. from Emily...  how about taking out all the notes and reading them aloud during your Thanksgiving Dinner?   (Maybe in between courses so no one gets itchy...  you could divide up the cards evenly among all or have the youngest readers in the house do the honors.)