Thanksgiving Day lesson card from “Family Night Made Easy: A Year of Instant Lessons and Uplifting Activities”
Thanksgiving is right around the corner! It’s a busy time of year and a great time to focus on gratitude. To help you with that, here’s a free lesson sample from my latest project, a set of over 50 family home evening lessons and ideas. They are printed on cards about the size of a 3×5 recipe card. Talk about fast family home evening prep! You just grab a card and go.
On the right is a picture of the Thanksgiving Day sample. The left side of the picture shows what’s on the front of the card; the right side shows the back of the card. Below is the text from this card for you to enjoy this week along with your Thanksgiving activities
My favorite spin off idea from this lesson is one my family did last year. We made a “thanksgiving wall”. We got a white piece of paper for every letter of the alphabet and taped all 26 pieces on a wall. We wrote A on one paper, B on the next, and so forth. Then, for months afterward, whenever we thought of something we were feeling grateful for, we’d spontaneously write it on the paper that began the word of the thing we were grateful for. It was so fun! And it kept the gratitude rolling.
For more free family home evening ideas…
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Thanksgiving Day
“Live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which [God] doth bestow upon you.” (Alma 34:38)
Music from Children’s Songbook and Hymns
A Song of Thanks (CS, 20)
Come, Ye Thankful People (Hymns, 94)
Quote
“I would like to mention three instances where I believe a sincere ‘thank you’ could lift a heavy heart, inspire a good deed, and bring heaven’s blessings closer to the challenges of our day. First, may I ask that we express thanks to our parents for life, for caring, for sacrificing, for laboring to provide a knowledge of our Heavenly Father’s plan for happiness. . . . Next, have we thought on occasion of a certain teacher at school or at church who seemed to quicken our desire to learn, who instilled in us a commitment to live with honor? . . . Third, I mention an expression of ‘thank you’ to one’s peers.” (Thomas S. Monson, “Think to Thank,” Ensign, Nov.1998)
Scripture Stories
Jesus healed ten lepers and only one came back to thank Him. (See Luke 17:11–19. Use Gospel Art Picture #46.)
Amulek teaches the Zoramites to pray over everything in their lives, care for the needs of others, and “live in thanksgiving daily” (Alma 34:38). (See Alma 34:17–28, 38.)
Activity
Get three thank-you cards for each person in the family. Write a note or draw a picture in the thank-you cards for each of the three people mentioned in President Monson’s above quote: parents, a special teacher, and a friend.
Make a gratitude journal by listing and drawing things you are grateful for. Leave the journal out so your family can add to it during the week.
Scriptures (We read one per day during breakfast as our family scripture study.)
Alma 34:38, Alma 7:23, D&C 78:18–19, Mosiah 26:39, Alma 37:35–37, Alma 34:37–38, 2 Nephi 9:49–52
Links to LDS.org Resources (seen on the cards as QR codes and shortened URLs)
LDS.org video “Thanksgiving Daily”
HAPPY HOME EVENINGS!!!
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