Easy Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

If you want to make Thanksgiving crafts in the classroom or at home, to decorate the walls or the table, this collection of Thanksgiving crafts for kids is sure to give you some ideas.

Because the Pilgrims came to America on a boat, you might want to make a Mayflower craft. Crafts by Amanda has a cute Mayflower made out of a cereal box, and you can add things you’re thankful for to the sails or to the little cut out pilgrims in the boat. Or make a moving boat (with the help of a craft stick) with the printable from Kids Craft Room.

Of course you probably really want some turkey crafts, and there are so many fun ways to make them.

The mix and match printables from Messy Little Monster allow you to make different turkeys with different styles of feathers, noses, feet and more. You can even add your child’s face to the turkey. These would be super cute to make as place holders for the holiday table, or to decorate the classroom around Thanksgiving.

Twitchetts has a great DIY for a different kind of construction paper turkey made with loops for the feathers. You can also take a basic turkey shape and make feathers out of just about anything, from handprints (Crafts by Amanda) to buttons (Crafts by Ria). Or use a pine cone as the base of your turkey and decorate it with feathers, ribbon or whatever else you like. Get the instructions from Fireflies and Mud Pies.

You’ll definitely want to make some turkey headbands with paper feathers like these from Only Passionate Curiosity. Kids will have lots of fun decorating them and wearing them around the house or classroom.

And maybe my favorite is the little wobbly turkey printable from Hattifant. These come in two different sizes to print and color, and you’ll just have to click over there to see what makes them wobble. So clever!

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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