Handmade Thanksgiving

We went all handmade with our Pre-k Thanksgiving celebration this year. I believe that students can take part in a celebration that is both beautiful and personally created. We wanted to thank our amazing parents with a special little feast and play.

A little rosemary trimmed from the front yard, wrapped with floral wire, and some simple cloth napkins dyed in cranberries that the students squashed and cooked made for elegant place settings.

Leaves gathered from the yard, painted, and pressed on rolls of white paper made for beautiful tablecloths.

For the meal, we churned (and shook) our own butter and added some of the wheat the students hand milled into the rolls. We made a no bake pumpkin cream cheese pie and finished it off with some hand ground cinnamon. The parents kindly supplied cheese, crackers, fruits, and veggies.

And for our entertainment, the students had their own ideas. I suggested a variety of turkey poems, or perhaps Stone Soup as an option. The students decided we should do Chicken Little (a book we had read several weeks prior), as the character names were just so fun. And so, we did our first real play with actual lines. The students spent several days making their costumes- feather drying takes some time, and working on their lines. Parents sent them dressed in their chosen animal color, and we were all set. It was a smashing success and both students and parents felt special and loved- which is pretty much always the goal at Little Garden Preschool.