Thanksgiving activities, a craft and a prayer for November religious education classes.

Thank you for the food we eat,

Thank you for the friends we meet,

Thank you for our work and play,

Thank you, God, for happy day!

We start to teach our children to thank God for the everyday things in our lives, starting at a very young age. Prayers of thanksgiving are among the first prayers taught to children.

Use this Thanksgiving to teach your students how to appreciate and thank God for all of our blessings.

Ask them to think of something they don’t like. Is there anything about it that’s actually good? Upset because it was raining yesterday and you got wet walking into school? Thank God for the rain that fed the farmers’ crops and helped the fish in the rivers and streams. Don’t like the dinners that your parents make you eat? Thank God for your family’s ability to buy you food and for the healthy life it gives you.

Here are some Thanksgiving lesson ideas, including a craft, an activity and a prayer, that you can use in your CCD class this season.

Pinecone Turkey Craft

This Thanksgiving craft is easy and fun, even for little ones.

Have each student glue a brown pompom to the top of the small end of a pine cone. This is the turkey’s head. Glue moveable craft eyes to the pompom head. Cut red construction paper to make a wattle (two teardrop shapes for each turkey) and orange construction paper for the beak (a triangle shape). Glue these onto the pompom head.

Using colorful feathers from a craft store or feathers cut out of construction paper, dab the bottom edge of each feather with glue and insert it into the back of the pine cone turkey, pushing them down into the spines.

What Are We Thankful For?

Give each of your students a turkey printable (below) and tell them to write something they’re thankful for on each of the turkey’s feathers.

Or, give your students a cornucopia printable (below) and have them draw pictures of things they’re thankful for, or cut pictures out of magazines and glue them in the cornucopia.

Thanksgiving Creation Prayer

Leader: Let there be light

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: Let there be sky.

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: Let the earth bring forth plants and every kind of fruit tree.

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: Let there be sun to govern the day and moon to govern the night, and let there be stars.

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures – creeping things, cattle and wild animals.

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: Let us make men and women in our image. Let them fill the earth and take care of what we have made.

All: And God saw that it was good.

Leader: God looked at everything He had made and He found it very good.

We thank you, God, for making us and for giving us the ability to love this world and to take care of it.

Thank you for _____ (Each person names the gift for which he or she is thankful.)

Leader: Let us join hands and pray together.

Thank you, God, for all of us here. Thank you for friends and for being our friend. Thank you for letting us know you.

Let us join in prayer as we pray . . .

All: Our father . . . (continue to pray the Lord’s Prayer)