Thanksgiving is a traditional North American holiday, which is a form of harvest festival. Here you will find fun, educational and engaging Thanksgiving arts and crafts for children. Our activities are widely used by teachers, moms, dads, child care providers etc. for learning and teaching while being fun for the kids!
Find activities for all ages including toddlers, preschoolers and kindergartners. All our activities are available at no cost and are free to print and share.
Easy Thanksgiving Crafts For Kids
THANKSGIVING QUILT
Give each child a 9 inch square of construction paper that has been divided into nine squares. Let each child glue 3 inch squares of fabric, wallpaper or colored wrapping paper in to the squares on their papers. Encourage them to glue their squares in patterns. Tape the children’s papers together to create a group quilt. Then display the quilt on a wall or a bulletin board.
THANKSGIVING CENTERPIECE
Give each child a 6 to 8 inch circle cut from poster board and a cardboard toilet tissue tube. Have the children cover their tubes in glue and roll in glitter. Help the children glue their glittery tubes upright in the centers of their poster board circle. Then give them small pine cones, acorn cups, and other assorted nature items to glue around the bases of their centerpieces. (Have the children sprinkle glitter all over their nature items, if desired.)
Give the children dried weeds or flowers to put in their tubes. Use the completed centerpiece to decorate the snack table or arrange them on the shelves around the room.
INDIAN NECKLACES
Use brown or white fluted coffee filters to make several necklaces for each child. To make necklaces, smooth a coffee filter out flat. Make a cut through the fluted edges then cut out the center. Punch a hole in each end of the filter and attach 10 inch pieces of yarn for ties. Let the children decorate their filters with felt tip markers or paint. Then help them cut fringes along the outer edges of their filters to complete their necklaces.
CORN COB
Yellow paper, cob and green husk. Wad up yellow tissue paper and glue to cob or glue on popcorn
HAND TURKEY THANKSGIVING CARD
Trace child’s hand and color brown body and colored feathers(fingers) Write in card: This isn’t just a Turkey As anyone can see, I made it with my hand Which is part of me. It comes with lots of love Especially to say, I hope that you have a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!!
TOILET PAPER ROLL TURKEY
Take a tp tube and cover it with brown construction paper. Trace both hands on white paper and let child color feathers. Cut out hands. Cut thumb off. Lay tube horizontally. Glue hands to back of tube. Cut out peanut shape for head and glue to the front of tube. Use a red piece of felt to droop down from top of his head. Add wiggle eyes.
GROCERY BAG TURKEY
Take a walk and gather fall leaves. Cut out two circles from grocery bag about 5 or 6 inches across. On the head glue eyes, beak and waddle cut from construction paper. Glue the leaves to the outer edges of one of the circle with most of the leaf sticking out over the edge …glue the other circle on top . Add two legs from construction paper.
INDIAN VEST
Grocery bag…cut a circle in the bottom of bag. Turn inside out and cut fringes on the bottom and write the Indian name of the child on the back of vest.
EGG CARTON TOTEM POLE
Cut egg cartons into 4 rows of 3 cups. Glue 2 sections together, back to back, to form totem pole. Decorate with colored macaroni, foam shapes or whatever you desire.
PINE CONE TURKEY
Take one red Chenille, bump & shape into an “S”. Glue this to the rounded end of a pine cone with the bump protruding somewhat above the cone for the head of the turkey. Take one orange bump & shape into a “V”. Glue this under the bottom of the round part of the cone for the legs & feet. Take 5-7 other bumps & carefully bend them so the narrow ends can be twisted together leaving the puffy end somewhat rounded. Glue as many of these as nicely fits close to the flattened stemmed end of the pine cone remembering to use glue on the twisted end of the wire.
POTATO TURKEY
Give each child a Russet potato & a precut turkey head with 2 tabs at the bottom of the neck. Using 2 halves of toothpicks, secure tabs to potato. Using another toothpick pock holes in the side of the potato & place a real feather in each hole. Use 4 toothpicks as legs.
A variation of the Potato Turkey is the APPLE TURKEY. Use the apple for the turkey body, precut turkey head, and those frilly cocktail toothpicks for feathers. Take a wire coat hanger and bend into an oval with the hook at the top. Stretch a leg of brown, tan panty hose over hanger, tie at the top. Children cut out and glue on six feathers, three each side. Two eyes, pupils, triangle orange nose, red gobbler, and two orange feet. We hang ours from the ceiling – they are adorable.
THANKFUL WREATH
Cut out an orange or yellow circle to fit a paper plate, and have child glue to center. Then have them crumple up and glue colored tissue paper (fall colors) to the outside of the wreath. Cut out a bow shape and either glue a small picture of the child in the center of the bow, or have the child write his/her name on the bow. Glue the bow to the outside of the plate.
Discuss thankfulness, and ask the child what they are thankful for. Then write that in the center of the plate i.e. “I am thankful for my parents.”. Then attach a ribbon or string on the back to hang the wreath.
M&M TURKEYS
For each turkey, you will need 2 pieces of orange nylon net, about 10″ square each;
1/2 of a brown pipe cleaner;
1 section of red chenille bump;
2 tiny wiggle eyes;
a piece of strong thread or thin string;
about 1/2 to 1 cup plain M&Ms,
a dab of glue.
Put the 2 pieces of net together, with the corners of one along the sides of the other, making 8 points. pour M&Ms in center, gather up the points, twist and tie securely. Coil the brown pipe cleaner, leaving about 2″; curve the 2″ to form the neck. Tuck the red bump into the bottom of the coil to form the wattle. Glue a tiny eye on each side of the head. Shape the body – the M&Ms – so that the ends of the net become the tail and stick out the back. Insert the neck thru the net in the front.
EASY TURKEYS
For a simpler craft, print out copies of a turkey outline. They can add feathers in several ways: thumbprints in water colors, glue real feathers on it, cut out feather shapes from colored construction paper and glue on, glue on crumbled fall leaves, even just color it.
HANDS AND A FOOT TURKEY
Materials: Several different colored construction paper, brown construction paper, white background paper. Cut several hand prints of the children on the different colored paper. Cut one foot print per child on the brown paper. The hand print is the feathers of the Turkey and the footprint is the body/face. Then use your imagination for the rest.
INDIAN CORN
Materials: Orange and green construction paper, popcorn, glue and scissors Cut corn shape from orange paper and stem form from the green paper. Let the children glue the corn all over the orange section.
INDIAN CORN NAPKIN HOLDERS
Cut cardboard tubes (from paper towels) into 1 inch wide sections. Cut brown felt into 1 inch wide strips. Glue felt pieces on inside and outside of the 1 inch cardboard pieces. Let the glue dry. Dab the back of each kernel of Indian corn with glue. Place the corn kernels on the ring, lining them in rows. Mix up the colors for a more interesting design.
MAKING NAME CARDS
Cut out a name card on white card stock. The sides should be angled like and / with the top arching. Glue corn around the top and sides of the card. You can glue some ric-a-rack on the back side to stick up above the top of the card. Add the name of the person on the front of the card. Tuck the card into two pine cones as the holders.
TURKEY POPCORN PICTURE
Materials: Picture of a turkey with backside feathers visible, tag board to glue picture on ahead of time, unpopped popcorn, rubbing alcohol, food coloring, crayons or markers. Color the popcorn by mixing it with rubbing alcohol and food color….let dry in an open container. Have the kids color the turkey then glue the colored popcorn on to make his feathers.
WALLPAPER TURKEYS
Have the children cut about a 5″ circle from brown construction paper. We provide the children with a precut profile of a turkey head and neck. (You could also use a rectangle for the neck and a small circle for the head.) They glue the base of it to the center of the circle at about a 45 degree angle. This is glued to a large sheet of drawing paper. They then draw the waddle, beak, eyes and feet.
The children are provided with a wide variety of feathers cut from old wallpaper. (The stores will often give you outdated wallpaper books.) We then encourage the children add details to their picture like grass, bugs to eat or whatever they like.
THANKFUL BOOK
Materials : Magazine pictures of home and family
Scissors
colored construction paper
Paste
Markers
Procedure:
1. Discuss the idea of being thankful like saying thank you, being glad to have something or somebody.
2. Place the pictures of home and family objects, such as family members, pets, food, houses, and beds on a table. Let the children select their choice of pictures.
3. Help them cut around the pictures and paste it onto construction paper. Print on the page ” I am thankful for….”
4. Assemble all the pages together for a Thankful book.:-) Ways to extend: Use any leftover pictures to make a mural. Listen to Hap Palmer’s “Things I am thankful for”.
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