Thanksgiving Charger Plate Project - more info...

To learn more about charger plates for this project, read on!

What is a charger plate? I didn't know what these were until a
few years ago, when they were used at a formal dinner event - they
look like coasters for dinner plates! :-) They are basically
oversized plates, and come in both round and square shapes. They
dress up the table, and serve a great purpose - they do protect the
table and/or tablecloth from Thanksgiving gravy or Christmas
cranberry spills. I've found plastic ones like those used in this
project at several dollar-type stores, as well as places like Hobby
Lobby and Kohls over the years.

Here are a few links that describe chargers and their history - very
interesting:

What is a Charger Plate?
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-decorative-charger-plate.htm

Charger (good picture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_charger

I hope these help - this is going to be a very interesting project. I
can't wait to see what everyone comes up with! I've saved some of my
children's Blessing Tree leaves over the years and plan to make some
color copies to use for this project.

It will be interesting to see what your children want to do to
decorate the plates - I love the imagination of children when they
are learning new things. Ask them questions as they are learning
about a topic - what do you think it would have been like to sail on
the Mayflower, what do you think their children did to pass the time
while onboard the ship, and on and on. Let them know that they will
be choosing things to decorate the plates as Thanksgiving approaches,
and see what they would like to include on the plates. Learning never
ends...

Blessings,
Amanda B.
www.unitstudy.com

Here's the plate project information once again, in case you missed it:

I discovered a great Thanksgiving craft project for kids on youtube
for creating Thanksgiving decoupage charger plates with kids at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kR4sD4fors

While the video leaves much to your imagination, I think we can
figure out how to do this project!

The basic concept is to glue pictures, leaves, and other images to
inexpensive charger plates (about $1 each at many discount stores).
After the glue dries, the kids can take glitter paint to go over the
plate. You could preserve the plates with a spray-on clear finish
when everything is dry. These charger plates are then placed on the
Thanskgiving table, almost like name cards. The charger plate is used
like a placemat to hold each dinner plate during the meal, and these
special chargers can then be saved as Thanksgiving keepsakes.

You can take this one step further by making each charger plate
unique:
* Personalizing a charger plate for each expected Thanksgiving dinner guest
* Using some of the Blessing Tree leaves mentioned in the Thanksgiving Unit Study
* Letting the kids cut out autumn pictures from magazines and newspapers to include on their plates
* Using scrapbooking letters to create names and special images on each plate
* Including copies of drawings and photos from their work on the Thanksgiving Unit Study (remember that you can reduce the size of the drawing/photos when making copies)