Teaching kids about gratitude can be a difficult concept. Like love, fear and other intangible emotions, gratitude can seem like a very elusive concept—especially for small children. To teach kids about gratitude—whether during Thanksgiving or any time—and to do a simple project to express your own gratitude, sometimes it’s fun to make a Tree of Thanks.

We make such a tree each year—either to hang up or to glue in our journals—with simple construction paper. If you prefer, you can always find a template online to use and print out instead. Nick Jr. has a Dora the Explorer version, and you could also simply make one using your own hand as a template.

My daughter and I like to free-form cut, so this year we cut out a large circle from orange paper—much like the one on Dora’s template—and then a few tree branches from brown paper. Then we cut out all different sizes of leaves to write down the things we are grateful for on.

I let her glue the circle onto a sheet of yellow construction paper, and then the tree limbs over the circle. Next, we drew pictures of and wrote about what we were thankful for on the tree leaves. She came up with some pretty cute things—Grandma and Grandpa, ponies, food, scarecrows. After we finished, we glued them all on the tree. Finally, we finished the project by gluing on a label that says, “Our Tree of Thanks, 2009,” and hung it up on the wall.

During the holiday season, we do another similar project with “Our Giving Tree.” We make a simple pine tree out of construction paper and decorate it with tiny ornaments, glitter, or anything else that’s handy. Every time we give something—we help someone, volunteer, donate money, clothes, or food, or any other type of giving activity—we cut out a red heart, write it down on the heart (and the date we did it), and glue it on the tree.

Do you have any thankful or giving crafts that you and your family like to do during the holidays—or during any part of the year—to commemorate your activities and thoughts as a family? How about an annual activity—like delivering turkeys to elderly people, or maybe sorting gift baskets at a shelter or church for sponsored families—that you do together?