Thanksgiving

We wanted to do some fun activities with our children to get them excited for the holiday and to help teach them about gratitude. It was a pretty broad topic but we had lots of fun and can't wait for Thanksgiving day! Here are a few activities we enjoyed with our kids and lots of yummy snack ideas.

Activities
Trace your hands on different colored card stock, trace your feet with shoes on to make the turkey's body. Cut out the hands and feet and glue together like the picture to make a turkey. Add eyes, a mouth, and feet!

Here is a turkey with just our hand:

Go on a nature walk and collect some leafs! Peel the wrappings off of your crayons and use the crayon to rub across the leafs that are under a plain white piece of paper. Ta-da you now have beautiful fall decorations!

Here is a picture of everything we used:

And here is our finished project:

Get creative with pipe cleaners! We made this cute turkey just following the picture that came on our package of pipe cleaners. (If you decide to do these a little hint is to start with the wings and work your way forward.)

Snacks
This is a super easy and fun treat to make and enjoy together. All you need is 2 bags of popcorn, 1 cup of Karo Syrup, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 (3 oz) package of your favorite jello mix, we used raspberry! Bring the syrup, sugar, and jello to a boil for about 3 minutes stirring continuously and pour mixture over popcorn, shape into balls and enjoy! Also if you want a more fluffy mixture just mix in a little baking soda to the sugar when through boiling. ; )

We made the next 2 snacks in the same day because they use a lot of ingredients. The picture below is of all the ingredients you will need to make turkeys and pilgrim hats.

(Big Marshmallows or mini resses pieces work too, 1 package of Fudge stripe keebler cookies, some camels, 2 blocks of dark almond bark or preferred melting chocolate, some candy corn, a red fruit roll up and frosting)

We have been making these little turkeys for thanksgiving for lots of years! I remember making them with my mom and have carried on the tradition with my kids.

Here is a picture of the back:

Here are the Pilgrims hats:

We made these yummy pumpkins and they were so simple!

~We used 1 package of marshmallows, 3 tsp of butter and 6 cups of rice krispies.

~We just melted the butter and mallows in the microwave for about a min and a half, mixed in 3 drops of yellow food coloring and 1 drop of red, and then stirred in the rice krispies.

~We then formed balls and added a tootsie roll for the top and green frosting for the leaves!

The kids LOVED them!

My little guy loved helping make "Gratitude Carameled Apples" even with a broken arm he helped unwrap every caramel!

We just stuck Popsicle sticks into the tops of clean washed apples and dipped them into caramel. We talked about things we were grateful for and then wrote a few on the sticks.

Ideas from Other Blogs
Through starting this blog we quickly learned that there are so so many other blogs and websites out that have wonderful ideas too. Here are a couple we really liked:

The gratitude tree from Ashleyannphotography.


The gratitude turkey from Toddler Approved.

Hand traced turkey from Busy Bee Kids Crafts.

Hand printed framed turkey from Kaboose.

Pilgrim Hats from Lake Shore Learning

Free Printables to help decorate the Thanksgiving Kids table from Shindig Parties To Go.

These adorable finger puppets from The Idea Room.

These fun Indian and pilgrims and decorated sugar cookies that look like corn from Family Fun.

Gratitude Rolls from Beauty and Bedlam.

Turkey Pop from Tippy Toes and Tantrums.

Yummy donut hole acorns from Gacious Rain.

More cute turkeys from 7th House on the Left.

These cute teepees with a tutorial on how to make them from Stiesthoughts.blogspot.com.

More acorn treats from The Crafty Crow.

What Matters Most

Teeth

Believe it or not we both graduated with our bachelor’s degrees in dental hygiene so we really just couldn't help giving our kiddos a lesson on teeth.  

Education

What are we supposed to be doing to take good care of our teeth? We should:

• Brush our teeth 2 times a day for a full 2 minutes! I always tell my patients that 2 is the magic number when it comes to brushing! ; ) Make sure not to scrub too hard...over time you can brush away your gums causing recession.
• Floss Daily. Make sure you are wrapping the floss like the letter "C" around each tooth. Even the very back ones.
• See your dentist regularly, every 6 months.
• Replace your toothbrush every 3-4 months.

We also recommend Fluoride especially if it is not in the water where you live.

For details on the correct way to brush and floss click here.

Have you ever wondered when teeth are supposed to come in and fall out? Here is a helpful link!

These timers are wonderful for helping kids to brush longer...the full 2 minutes. Another helpful hint is to turn off the water while they brush. It not only saves water but they tend to brush longer!

Kids tend to get excited about new toothbrushes and special toothpastes. If you want your kids to have a visual of the areas they are missing when they brush have them chew on a disclosing tablet- it will turn the plaque on their teeth red and show them where they need to brush.

A lot of parents have difficulty brushing little ones teeth because they fight it. This is one of our favorite positions for brushing young children s teeth. (Put their hands under your legs)

Activities

We had a lot of fun doing these activities and tried to be creative. We made these yummy snacks to eat from a roll and candy corn and made an activity out of it too by flossing in between the teeth/candy corn.

We made these mouths by cutting a big oval out of paper and then folding it in half. We then added marshmallows for teeth. You could also make this a game by having your kids take turns rolling a dice to determine how many teeth they can add to the paper.

We made this toothbrush out of a tissue and construction paper.

We also had a lot of fun practicing our flossing with play-doe, string and a muffin pan. The play-doe acts like plaque on the side of the pan. Teach your child that the string is like floss. It helps us to get the plaque out from between our teeth

Make oral hygiene fun by brushing together as a family

Let your kids dress up like a dentist and talk to them about visiting the dentist

Egg in vinegar
Put an egg in a jar of vinegar. Ask your child about the purpose of the shell. Discuss how the egg shell helps to protect the rest of the egg and compare the egg shell to your teeth. Ask what will happen to the egg in the vinegar. After a night or day (at least 10 hours) remove the egg. Explain that the same thing happens to our teeth if we don't take care of them. That's why it's so important to brush and floss regularly!

Above: Notice the egg on the Right is soft, it also looks more yellow then the other one.

Some other fun activities ideas are:

Teach your child about the tooth fairy-make a pillow or drawing.

Put on a puppet show all about teeth and how to take care of them.

Examine your toothbrush and determine if you need a new one. The toothbrush on the left is still good to use. The orange one on the right needs to be replaced.

Take care of your smile and it will take care of you:)

Snack: smile snack with apples, peanut butter and marshmallows.

Another great snack is Cheese or Milk...both help to neutralize the PH in the mouth which helps to fight cavities.

Oh, and just one more little tip. When it comes to the health of your teeth....It's all about the amount of times you eat or FREQUENCY. Every single time you eat something realize that your teeth are under acid attack for about 15 minutes after the food has been swallowed. It's best to eat everything at one sitting vs the alternative of taking little bits throughout the entire day.