Thanksgiving "HGO"

This is our Thanksgiving Homeschool Group Outing (HGO). I wish I had better pictures, but my kids got the camera that morning and messed up the focus!!! Ahhhh!!! The goal was to focus on "thanks" and "giving". We started off with a review.

 

The kids were sooo crazy after being sick and the time change and the weather change...so we had to bust out the snack already! I think they all had a granola bar and like 4 packets of fruit snacks.  Then we colored a picture that I laminated so we could use it as a placemat for Thanksgiving.  Alison had written down some things to talk about for being thankful, but the kids were being nutty so we only got to pray. I found this really cool thankfulness study though.  

The kids were not even wanting to color...so it was game time! Alison did Red Light/Green Light and held up a red or green piece of construction paper to help them know when to go and they ran after her (totally preggo too!)  

Then we enticed them back to the tables with a movie. I had downloaded onto my touchpad a short clip of kids receiving Operation Christmas Child boxes. This is a project where people fill shoe boxes with new toys, candy, and toiletries for other kids around the world who don't have much of anything. When they receive a box, it is a gift of love and gives an opportunity to share Christ's love to them as well. We wrapped our shoe boxes and filled the boxes with items we had bought from the store earlier in the week. The kids barely participated and mostly the moms ended up doing this part, but I think we all talked to the kids beforehand about what the boxes were for so no biggie! 

Lastly, we tried to squeeze out of the kids something they are thankful for and write it down on little leaf cut-outs and hang them on the adorable 'Thankful Trees' Alison made. Elijah (2) just kept telling me he was thankful for food (because we say thanks and pray when we eat food I'm guessing?) and Nehemiah (3) could only think of stuff that was right in front of him. He would say he was thankful for whoever was walking by and he kept insisting that he was thankful for the table (the park table)...I'm like that's so cool we get to go to a park and play with our friends and sit at this table...that's great to be thankful for, but what about maybe the table at our house and be thankful you have a house or daddy...he's like--no! I am just thankful for this table! haha. ok. At the end we did duck-duck-goose and Alison brought this apple peeler that will take off the peel of an apple and turn it into a slinky apple as you turn the crank. And that was it---the moment when we had all the kids attention. :)

I am thankful for these moms! Don't be jealous cuz I got mad video camera skills...