Here’s a fun way for the entire family to practice expressing gratitude together- creating a thankful jar. This easy Thanksgiving craft seconds as a meaningful activity for both kids and adults and can even be used as a Thanksgiving lantern when you’re done!

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This post was originally posted on October 19, 2015 and has since been updated.

Lucy (age 7) and Theo (age 4) are at the perfect ages to start focusing on gratitude and thankfulness. With Thanksgiving getting closer, I thought creating our very own thankful jar would be a great way to help the entire family focus on kindness and gratitude together. (This post contains affiliate links.)

How to Make the Thankful Jar

This thankful jar craft is really easy for the kids to make and turns out so colorful! Students can even make them in class and bring them home to share with their families.

Materials for the Thankful Jar Thanksgiving Craft

• Empty mason jar
• Tissue paper squares or small, torn pieces of tissue paper
• Scissors
• Paintbrush
• Liquid starch or liquid glue

Directions for the Thankful Jar Craft

For this craft you can use liquid starch like we did or substitute liquid glue thinned with a bit of water. (If you do end up using the liquid starch, be sure to check out all these other cool things you can make with your leftover starch!)

1. Cover your mason jar with tissue paper by using the liquid starch and a paintbrush. To do this, paint a small section of your mason jar with the liquid starch, place some tissue paper pieces on the wet area of the jar, and gently brush the pieces down using your paintbrush. We decided to do our entire jar using yellow.

2. Cut out some small leaf-shaped pieces of tissue paper.

Use the liquid starch to add them to the surface of your mason jar.

3. Let your jar dry completely.

4. Cut some strips of paper and place them near your thankful jar, along with some markers.

Using the Thankful Jar

To use the thankful jar, family members record things they are thankful for onto a slip of paper and drop it into the jar. (We have our thankful jar out in the kitchen so anyone can write something down whenever something comes to mind.)

Over time the jar will start to fill up! On Thanksgiving, the family can sit down and read all the slips of paper together.  When the jar is empty, it can be used as a Thanksgiving lantern by placing a flameless tea light candle inside the empty jar- making a beautiful centerpiece to your Thanksgiving dinner!