Let the Thankfulness begin!

We are off to a good start! We are talking this week about what it means to be thankful and we are talking about how Thanksgiving came to be.
I made a file folder game (actually 2-in-1) called Acorn Addition and Acorn Subtraction. I got most of it from a new website called
filefolderfun. They had some very simple addition and subtraction problems, but they also offered the templates so you could also make up your own. I made about 15 different sheets, so this will be most of SweetPea's math for this month. We are also reviewing patterns. We tried using coins but SweetPea got confused when I asked her to make an AB pattern with nickels and dimes. She asked, "Wouldn't that be a ND pattern?" LOL SO, I had to break out the trusty M&Ms to explain that no matter what the item is, or what color it is, the first item in a pattern is the A, and the second is the B. The A and the B must be different in some way from each other, so you could not put four red M&Ms side by side and call it an AB pattern. (I did not get into the fact that you could put one red M&M upside right and the next upside down and make that your pattern!!)
Thanks to the yummy M&Ms she was able to make AB, ABB, ABC, and ABCD patterns correctly! I think her favorite part was eating her patterns!
The first book we read for our Thanksgiving theme this week was The First Thanksgiving by Linda Hayward. It was a fairly easy read that gave a nice introduction to the Thanksgiving story. We also began reading Thanksgiving At Our House which is a collection of Thanksgiving poems. We will read one per day this month, which will take the place of Poems and Fingerplays , which we have been reading in the previous months. Next week SweetPea will begin working on her own Thanksgiving Poem that we will put in her folder to share with the family when we get together for Thanksgiving dinner.
We made a minibook for the song "God Is So Good" and we sang the song together. We are also starting on our Thanksgiving trees, where we will write on a leaf each day one of the blessings God has given us that day that we are thankful for. On homeschoolshare, one of my friends shared an even better idea, or rather, to go along with the Thanks tree. She recommended making a Thanks tree and a Giving tree. The Thanks tree you use as we'd planned, as a place to record your blessings from God. For the Giving tree you write on a leaf each day one thing you did to bless someone else that day! Isn't that a splendid idea? Not to be proud of yourself for what you've done, but just to make sure that you are not just hoarding all the blessings and keeping them for yourself! For both trees, you can glue your leaf of the branches of the tree, or make a pile at the base of the tree. I will try to get some pictures posted in the next few days of our trees, then I will take new ones each week so you can see how we are progressing.

Acorn Math file folder: