Kelly Joseph
- Dec 18, 2022
- 5 min read

Create a new fall tradition with a gratitude tree

Using mostly items you have nearby, create this special display for your fall celebrations

Fall is an important season for cultures around the world. There are festivals, dances, rituals, and ceremonies to celebrate a bountiful harvest and give gratitude for the many gifts the earth offers. Here in the garden, we have much to be thankful for this year, and so we created a new tradition with a collaborative community art project. You may be surprised to learn that it only took a few materials and about 10 minutes to create this wonderful Gratitude Tree.

Connecting the lesson to Native American Heritage Month

This week we also found an amazing opportunity to connect students to Native American Heritage Month, during the month of November. As giving thanks for nature’s gifts is one tradition that is shared by all native groups across the Americas, we can connect Indigenous traditions to the fall harvests and our community art project for a meaningful experience for our students. We incorporated tastings of several heirloom varieties of popcorn and discussed how the care and dedication of generations of indigenous communities are the very reason we have corn today. We offered our gratitude for their labor, generosity, and knowledge.

This is also the perfect opportunity to incorporate a land acknowledgment into your garden lessons. If you have never heard one before, it is a statement that acknowledges the tribal lands that you are currently standing on as well as a historical recounting of treaties or conflicts which removed the First Peoples from their land, as well as their past and current contributions to the world. It is important to speak about Indigenous communities in the present tense! They are still here and still making amazing contributions to the world with their culture, heritage, traditions, expertise, skills, creativity, and innovation. I encourage you to discover whose land you stand on and incorporate a land acknowledgment into your lesson planning.

How to build a gratitude tree

For this project, there are a few simple supplies to gather. You can make a gratitude tree that is small and fits on a table, or you can make a large one that the whole class or school can add to.

You'll Need:

- A few branches or one large branch (depending on the size of tree you want)

- An empty pot that is deep enough to hold your tree

- Sand (enough to fill your pot)

- Leaves or paper to cut leaves (I used these)

- String or floral wire

- Scissors

- Markers

- Single hole punch

For a larger tree

To make the larger tree, set your branch down into your empty pot first to ensure that it will sit low enough in your pot. I attached a chunk of wood to my tree just below the rim of the pot to hold the tree in the center. If your tree seems pretty well balanced without this added brace, feel free to skip that step. You can fill the pot in with sand, packing it firmly once it's full.

If you need to, go around your tree and shape it up. Trim off any remaining leaves, berries, or nuts. Take out broken, diseased, or tangled branches. Make sure that as you trim, you're checking the weight of the tree is still in the center so that it doesn't start to tip to one side or another. I go with the tree-trimming rule: if a bird can fly through it, then it's open enough.

To make the tree very stable in the school garden, find a spot to dig a hole and lower your pot and tree into it. This will make sure that if someone bumps the tree or pulls on a branch, it won't tip over.

For a Table Top Gratitude Tree

What's lovely, is this version of the tree can work almost anywhere. Fill your pot with sand, poke in a few bare sticks to create a pleasant tree shape, and then pack in the sand around the sticks so that they feel firmly in place.

That's literally all it takes for the small tree!

Adding your Leaves

First, we will take a moment to be present in the garden, your classroom, or your outdoor space. Close your eyes and just listen. Now hand each child a leaf and a marker. As they walk around, have them look for something here that they are grateful for, it could be the wind, bees, worms, or plants. Anything in this space that is from nature is a possibility.

If the weather doesn't allow for this activity to be outdoors, have everyone close their eyes and picture a place in nature that they love to be, it could be a park near their house, a place they've visited, a spot they like to sit at a restaurant near a tree, anywhere. Have them focus on this space and imagine they're there right now. Now that they are in this space, ask:

"What is in this space that you makes you feel so glad that it exists? The thing here that makes it your favorite place to be. Hold this thing in your mind and when you open your eyes, write your gratitude note."

Encourage students who are emergent writers to practice a complete phrase: Thank you ____ for your _____. If students are not quite ready to write, have them draw a picture instead. Then on the back of their leaves, they can write the name of someone they're grateful for in their lives. Once they are finished, punch a hole in the leaf, and thread a string through it. Now you can tie it to the tree or hang it like an ornament on your tree.

Once the leaves are attached, feel free to read a few examples of gratitude quotes:

“We are thankful for the clouds, rain, and snow that feed the springs, rivers, and our people.” John Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo), 2002

“With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans, and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them, too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting of thanks.” Haudenosaunee (hoe-dee-no-SHOW-nee) Thanksgiving Address

Ask students to share what they selected to be grateful for, if they would like to share. And ask them what can we do to show that we care for what they have chosen.

Making it a Family Tradition

At home, this can be the perfect way to bring gratitude to your fall celebrations. Each day of November, write a new leaf to add to your tree. By the end of the month, you will have a beautiful display to reflect on all the moments you took a few minutes to channel gratitude to your heart.