Friday, December 17, 2010

Thanksgiving Trees

Before I start posting more recipes, I wanted to share a project I did with Ava's Kindergarten class.  In addition to baking and cooking with the kids on a weekly basis, Ava's teacher has invited parents to come into the classroom to share their talents.  One of the moms is a very talented designer and she came in and worked on a project with the kids combining artwork and a story created by them, another mom came in to teach yoga.

Thanksgiving was approaching and I remembered a project that the students did in the preschool Ava attended.  With the help of their teachers, the kids made "Thanksgiving Trees."  The tree was a Birch Branch on which paper leaves and little tags hung.  "I am thankful for...." was written on one side of the tag and the child's response on the other.  I started around town in hopes of finding supplies for 16 trees, enough for each student in Ava's class.  I started combing the park for good branches but had little success.  The "trees" I found were just plain old sticks.  On one of our walks home from school one day, I noticed a beautiful Birch with perfect branches.  That wasn't going to work out though, as I knew I was going to have a tough time explaining to my neighbor exactly what the heck I was doing up on a ladder with my trusty sheers, cutting down the branches from his tree.  I decided to try our local florists.  The first florist would happily sell me 16 twigs for twenty bucks.  Yeah thanks, but no thanks. The second, said they couldn't get me the branches at all.  I started to wonder if I this art project was really going to happen when I decided to try a third place.                                                    
The third time was a charm and a very awesome, non-greedy and helpful florist named Frank told me not only could he get me the branches, but that he would give them to me for free!  Isn't that great?  Thanks to Frank, I am delighted to share with you the pictures of the Thanksgiving Trees created by Ava's Kindergarten class. 


The kids really enjoyed working on this project.  They happily decorated their branches with multicolored leaves and excitedly told me all that they were thankful for.  Responses ranged from their moms and dads to hot chocolate!


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