YOUR FAMILY

Rainbow Gratitude Leaf Garland

Gratitude is a wonderful mindset to cultivate in our children. Practising gratitude with our children lays the foundations for positive thinking as they learn to focus on the good. Making a Gratitude Leaf Garland is a simple activity that teaches thankfulness, all while enjoying a bit of quality time together. It doesn’t take long to prepare or do making this a wonderful activity to nurture connection, mindfulness, and joy even on the busy or challenging days.

This activity creates an opportunity to consider and chat about what it means to be grateful. It is suitable for younger and older children, though little ones will need some physical help and probably some nudges with ideas. Your child can make their own leaf garland, or you can contribute as a family. You can make it all at once, or you can add a leaf a day and watch it slowly grow. You can make a leaf garland with a group of friends. There are so many possibilities. Enjoy.

How to make your Rainbow Leaf Garland:

1. Download and print the Rainbow Leaves PDF (link above). You may like to print out extra copies for a longer garland. Alternatively, you can draw your own leaves on coloured construction paper.
2. Cut out the rainbow leaves.
3. Use a hole punch to make a hole in one corner of each leaf. Alternatively, forego this step and use glue or sellotape to stick the leaves to the string. You could even use little craft pegs to peg them up.
4. For each leaf, your child thinks of a word capturing something they are grateful for. Write the word on the leaf. Your child may like to decorate the leaf.
5. Arrange the leaves, in the order of rainbow colours, ready to be strung.
6. Thread the string through the holes in the leaves. Keep enough string on either side of the leaf rainbow to hang the garland. Alternatively, stick the back of the leaves to the string with glue or sellotape.
7. Find a special place to hang your leaf garland, somewhere your child can see it and be reminded of the things he or she is grateful for.

Find out more about the science, benefits, and power of gratitude here.