Mommy & Me Mondays: A heartfelt Thank You

 

Happy Memorial Day!  Boy am I proud to be an American.  Days like today make me stop and realize that we remember many, but we honor all who serve and served our country.  Both of my grandpas are veterans, and I couldn't let this day go by without a thank you.  Throughout the years I have have found it very important to teach my students about civic responsibility.  We've had pen pals in Iraq, made hundreds of baggies of candy to be dropped on low flying missions over Afghanistan, written to Wounded Warriors, and reached out to our local armory.  Our school hosts Take a Veteran to School Day each November, and this event allows students to honor and hear about sacrifice first hand.  Memorial Day is more than just yummy backyard barbeques, it is also a day of remembrance and gratitude.

For our Mommy and Me Monday activity this week Mack and I decided to make a thank you note.  I think I might be one of the last people on Earth that still LOVES snail mail, so this was a perfect project for me.  Teaching children the significance of thanking others is important.  Whether it be for material things, kind gestures, or freedom.  We started off our thank you by heading to the pantry and grabbing a potato.  I hadn't made a potato stamp in a very long time, much less a star shaped one, so this was going to be interesting.  I prevailed and we got to painting. 

 I'm working with Mack on color recognition.  He is tempted to classify everything as green, so with some badgering he got the red and blue pattern down.  Let me back up a little though.  I let him use the potato stamp freely at first, since a 20 month old isn't really concerned about a "neat" product (but I doubt my grandpa is either).  Once he got used to holding the stamp, we started with our border pattern.  I wrote a sweet thank you message to my grandpa (Mack's great-grandpa), he signed, and we sealed with love and admiration. 

Today would be a great day to have your children design their own thank you notes.  Your children could mail them to a family member or friend who is a military hero or someone in your community that has lost a hero.  A thank you goes a long way when it's made with love from a child.