The blog has been too quiet! Last weekend, our family went to Savannah to visit my husband’s grandmother (remember his Grandfather died a few months ago) and to a family reunion. Our internet access was limited sometimes impressing your kids (and family) means not running around the house with your laptop in the air trying to bootleg someone’s internet!
So, I missed sharing some Thanksgiving-ish things to share with you. I hope we get to them before Thanksgiving–wait, that’s like in TWO DAYS! Can you believe it? Then it will be Christmas! The Monday after Thanksgiving I’m going to introduce our Advent activities. I’m really excited about what we’re going to do–it’s different from the Advent ornaments we’ve done the last two years. Hopefully, I’ll even have a supply list for you so you can get everything before I post about it!
Now, back to Thanksgiving! Yesterday we stopped at the bookstore to find a Thanksgiving book. Why? Because all the smart moms already checked all the Thanksgiving books from the library. Well, we never found the Thanksgiving book at the bookstore because I got distracted by the Christmas books at the front door! They were all on sale and I found the most fun books—My First Christmas Mad Libs
for $1. How great is that?
Well, this book me the idea of making a Thanksgiving Mad Lib. Of course, Lydia has no idea what nouns and adverbs are, so I had to be a little more creative. But the key to a good Mad Lib anyway is not just saying “noun” but helping your kids be creative by saying “a person, place or thing found on the bottom of the ocean” or “an activity you might do in China”. It makes for much funnier stories! And make sure you don’t clue your kids in on the theme of the story, you don’t want to sway their responses. It’s funnier to tell them the title after they’ve given you their words.
Here’s one that we made:
A Thankful Thanksgiving Letter
Dear {family member’s name}:
On this Thanksgiving Day I want to tell you how thankful I am for you. Thank you for always playing {game} with me. When I think about you I {something that happens when you have a cold}. You are so {describe a dog}. Every time I see you, I want to give your {body part} a big hug! It always makes me happy when you call me by my pet name, {funny name}. You are truly the best {family relation} a kid could ask for! I love you more than {something in a trashcan}!!
Yours truly,
{your name}
Lydia thought this was the funniest thing ever–especially when we wrote the letter to her cousin (and best friend), Nora. Lydia wants to make one of these for everyone in our family for Thanksgiving! That might be a cute card/gift for them!
Here’s one more that made us laugh:
Our Thanksgiving Traditions
Every year on Thanksgiving my family eats the same thing. First, we have {breakfast food} with butter. Then, fried {fruit}. We also have {food} with gravy and {food you get at Disney World}. And the main course is a stuffed {bird} with gravy! After we eat, we all lay down on the {furniture} and watch {TV show}–it’s such a great Thanksgiving tradition! Soon, my {family relation}, {funny name} brings out the {object found at the zoo} and we eat dessert! {Funny word}, I love Thanksgiving!
We laughed and laughed after this one–Lydia said “parrot” for the bird and “Buford” for a funny name, so eating a stuffed parrot with gravy and having a family member named Buford had her in gales of laughter!
I had this great plan of making it a really good printable for you so you could just print it off and do it with your kids. Alas, Photoshop Elements is eluding me. So, just grab your mouse and copy and paste the above stories into Word or some text editing program. Then print it off and have a little silly fun with your kids today!
***Impress Your Kids has some new digs at ohAmanda.com! Come visit us there for all the Impress Your Kids archives and all our new posts–including our Easter newsblast with fabulous tips for celebrating a meaningful Easter with your kids!***
