Learning to Express Gratitude This Holiday Season

With the holidays approaching, it can feel a little overwhelming to think about extra lessons you may want to give your little one outside of their regular NYC preschool classes. Luckily, teaching your little one about gratitude can be very easy! We’ve put together a few preschool Thanksgiving activities to help you and your little one learn more about gratitude and how to express it this holiday season and beyond!

Reading

There are quite a few books that have been written about the holiday of Thanksgiving, and about being thankful in general (we have a long list here!). You can buy them yourself, or bring your little one to your local library to let them decide which ones they’d like to take out and read as their preschool Thanksgiving activity. Books are also a great way to learn about all kinds of people – we each only have our own perspective, but books can be written by people who have many different perspectives, and those perspectives may offer even more things for your little one to be thankful for!

Giving

Whether it’s the act of giving for the holidays (like gifts at Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Yule); donating gently used clothes and toys your little one has grown out of; or simply giving someone a little extra help, like holding the door for a friend at your little one’s NYC preschool or for a stranger at the coffee shop; giving is a great way for your little one to learn how to express their own gratitude. You can invite your little one to help you give, so they learn all about the different ways that giving to others can make you realize all you have to be thankful for, and how to share that gratitude with others by giving without expectations.

Writing It Down

One of the best ways to celebrate Thanksgiving is with this preschool Thanksgiving activity: invite your little one to join you in writing down what you all as a family have to be thankful for. You can always start out by giving examples of what you are personally thankful for, like the food on the dinner table, or the opportunity to spend time with family during the holiday break, and your little one may surprise you by saying they’re thankful for their NYC preschool, or for having you in their life! To make it an extra interactive preschool Thanksgiving activity, you can write each item on a slip of paper, and then fill a jar or a big poster board with each grateful item. Be sure to decorate the jar or poster board to make it a personalized preschool Thanksgiving activity, and your little one may even brag about it at their NYC preschool after the break!

Saying “Thank You”

Of course, one of the best ways to teach your little one about being thankful is by showing them the day-to-day ways you’re thankful! By saying “thank you” when a door is held open for you, or when you receive your daily coffee on your way to dropping off your little one at their NYC preschool, it reinforces the little ways people help each other every day. You may have to remind your preschooler at first to also say their own thank you’s when a friend shares a toy during a playdate, or after getting their own holiday presents, but pretty soon it’ll be an old habit, and you may just hear them saying “thank you” the next time their NYC preschool teacher gives them praise during an online preschool lesson. 

We here at Playgarden wish you and your little ones a very grateful Thanksgiving and happy holiday season!