What are you thankful for?

Hello families,

As we look at the calendar and see so many home days, the friends have begun talking about what these holidays mean.  Last week we generated a beginning list of what we are thankful for.  You can find this on our door.   The friends are adding more to this list and still thinking about what the meaning of Thanksgiving is for them.  Here are some thoughts from our discussions.

What is Thanksgiving about? (In their own words)

It's about giving love.

It's about caring.

It's not just about turkeys.  It's like when someone gives something to someone and they thank you.

It's helping each other, working things out and if someone gets hurt, first you ask if they're okay and if they need anything.  You don't want anyone hurt on Thanksgiving.

How could we celebrate what we are thankful for?

To eat food

To play together and help each other

We could say, "I love you".

We could give some hugs.


After this, the friends didn't seem to want a lot of fanfare, but to plan a day of being nice to each other.  They decided that having a Love Party was how they want to celebrate.

Here are their plans for the Love Party:

Eat cookies that say "Love" or heart shaped cookies.

Cut out the word love (for decorations) and hearts or hearts with wings and "I love you" for the walls (why wings?  So love can fly to you)

Give loving messages to people who you never gave a message to.  (the class agreed to generate a message for each child during this week)

So the jobs the friends plan to get done for the party are:
1) Someone will count how many children are in our class so they can decide how many cookies to ask for (their first estimate of ten was thought to be too much when people thought that it meant ten each, and too little when the friends realized that they meant only ten cookies in all!)

2) Someone or some friends will create a sign up for milk, and the two types of cookies.  (we still have the juice from the last party)

3) Friends plan to make the decorations for the walls

4) Create a sign that says "Welcome to the Love Party"

5) Make friends messages all week

They are getting the hang of organizing themselves for celebrations.  It seems that they have the truth in what matters here. It is nice to see this.  (If I really think about it, these are my own personal priorities, too: Dessert, Togetherness and Love, in any order)

I wish you a week full of LOVE!  And thank you for sharing such sweet friends!  Love, Jennifer

PS there are many other amazing things happening here in our room, so please keep watching the interesting topics that arise during open choice time.  You can always find this in our planned possibilities binder!