Thanksgiving Sensory Activities

There are so many fun sensory experiences that come around Thanksgiving, with lots of things to see, smell and touch. These Thanksgiving themed sensory activities are fun to do at home or with small groups of kids.

Of course the dominant smell/taste of Thanksgiving you probably think of is pumpkin, and I found recipes for pumpkin fluff from Teaching Mama, pumpkin play dough from Wildy Wonders, and pumpkin slime from My Joy Filled Life.

You can use that scented play dough to do pumpkin pie fraction math, with printables from Fantastic Fun and Learning. Or make a turkey with your dough and other things you might have lying around like feathers, eyes and little bits of foam or other found objects. Learn how in this post from Mama Papa Bubba.

Get more pumpkin-specific sensory experiences and ideas here: pumpkin sensory activities. (This post was more for Halloween but pumpkin endures through the seasons, doesn’t it?

If you’re not a pumpkin fan you can try apple pie playdough instead, which uses apple pie spice instead of pumpkin spice. This recipe is from The Best Ideas for Kids, but you can use your favorite playdough recipe and add food coloring and spices of whatever sort you like to make a fall playdough.

Another great scent and sensory experience of the season comes form cranberries. You can make a cranberry-scented playdough with this recipe from Learn Play Imagine, or do some cranberry STEM and sensory activities with these ideas from Little Bins for Little Hands.

There are lots of different possibilities for making sensory bins with seasonally appropriate fillers like corn (I Can Teach My Child) or Indian corn (Still Playing School), brown paper (Mrs. Plemon’s Kindergarten) or even fall-colored pasta (Not Quite Super Mom).

Some fun things to add to your fall or Thanksgiving sensory bins include measuring cups, fake pumpkins, acorns, real or fake leaves, little cups, etc.

Are you looking for the best sensory toys and activities for your child? Explore our comprehensive resources to enhance your child’s sensory play and development. Check out our curated Amazon Idea List featuring top-rated sensory toys and items, and don’t miss our expertly written articles on sensory activities. Start creating fun and educational sensory experiences today!

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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