Children's Sunday School Crafts and activities - Thanksgiving Crafts - Thanksgiving Leaf Wreath

Colorful Autumn and Thanksgiving wreath to color and cut. The circle, represents God ( God has no beginning and no end - like a circle). The realistic Maple leaves represent the beauty and splendor of God's world, especially in the autumn. Children can color these as brilliantly and diversely as they want.

The wreath cutting is especially simple, however planning the message in the round takes a bit of planning ahead, so I have provided a practice circle for spacing the words. The practice circle can be used for testing the phrase you choose (or the children choose) and if it comes out just the way they want, it can be cut out and overlaid on the wreath, or children can rewrite it on the wreath.

This craft can bring out the artist in each child. See the coloring instructions below.

Print or print and copy activity page (printing the web page will give you a practice circle on automatic page 2)

1. Cut out the wreath. (See Cutting Made Easy for cutting inner circle easily)
2. Determine what to print in the inner circle. Teacher can choose the message, or have the children choose the message: the longer the messagae, the smaller they must print around the circle. Teacher can choose any phrase of their own or use our suggestions for the message:

3. Use the practice circle to test how big - or small your letters have to be to fit around the circle. Then either rewrite it on the wreath, or cut it out and glue it over the wreath.
4. To give the leaves a lifelike look, choose several dark colors (crayons work best) and trace over the veins (the lines inside each leaf).
5. Choose a variety of lighter colors to to color in the leaves. If you want to be artistic, stroke your colors from the stem to the edge of the leaf. You'll be proud of the results.
6. Choose a contrasting (opposite color) to fill-in between the leaf tips and the outer edge of the circle. (Try blues, greens, or purples) .