October is a month filled with fall activities, fun, and family! Falling in the middle of October, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to come together with your loved ones, and truly be thankful for all you have. Thanksgiving is also a great opportunity to spend some quality time with your children. One easy and fun way to get in that family time with your children is to partake in some Thanksgiving-themed crafts.
Craft time is a fantastic way to help your child explore their imagination, and art projects allow children to express their curiosity about new materials. Colours and textures of art supplies connect with children’s senses, and encourage learning through touching materials and creating their own pieces of art. This learning experience will be so much fun, your children won’t even realize they are furthering their development in the process!
To help you kick off craft time with your children, we have put together a list of our favourite Thanksgiving crafts that your children will enjoy creating, and you can enjoy the time spent together with the beautiful pieces they produce.
5 Fun Thanksgiving Crafts for the Whole Family
- Paper Cup Tabletop Turkey
These adorable paper cup turkeys are so easy, your children will definitely want to make more than one! After painting the paper cup brown, turn it upside down and glue a pom-pom to the top of the cup for the head. Use an array of coloured construction paper, such as yellow, orange, and brown, to make the turkey feathers. Add the beak, feet, and googly eyes, and your tabletop turkey is done! Since you are using different coloured construction paper, each turkey can look slightly different while keeping the same theme. You can even use these cute critters as the place settings for your family dinner!
- Popcorn On The Cob
This corn on the cob craft looks good enough to eat; and since it uses real popcorn, you actually can! Using green and yellow construction paper, cut out the shape of the leaves, and then the cob. Glue the yellow cob to the green leaves, and cover the yellow cob with a layer of glue. Here comes the fun part: cover the glue with popped corn, and set aside to dry. Attaching the wooden craft sticks is optional, and if you want a simple version of the craft, you can leave the real popcorn out entirely. To make a more 3D corn on the cob, line up the leaves and glue 2 completed popcorn-cobs back to back for your completed project.
- Decorative Thanksgiving Blocks
This craft requires a bit more preparation from the parents, but these decorative blocks are great for now, and even for later! Using blank wooden blocks, be sure to sand down the corners so your children are safe from splinters and rough edges. Help your children pick out their colours, and give the blocks a coat of paint. From there, you can either print templates for letters, or trace them onto the blocks directly. Once the letters are done and the blocks are dry, ask your children to help spell out your Thanksgiving message with you! Once Thanksgiving is over, these blocks will remain a good learning and building tool for years to come. Add in letters or numbers on the remaining sides for optimal usage!
- Thankful Pumpkin Pie
This pumpkin pie craft, complete with an interactive spinner, is a wonderful way to engage your children in what they are thankful for during this holiday. Trim the edge of one paper plate with scallop-edge scissors to create the look of a piecrust. Using pumpkin-coloured construction paper, cut a circle to fit in centre of the plate, and fasten it in place in the centre with a brad pin. Cut a slice out of the pie, and let your children handwrite what they are thankful for. Spin the pie to reveal different messages, even adding your own! Decorate the pie with lettering or paint however you like!
- Family Handprint Turkey
This family handprint turkey is by far our favourite Thanksgiving craft, and a great way to get the whole family involved! Using construction paper, trace each member of your family’s handprints, using a different colour for each person. Cut out the handprints, and glue together from smallest to biggest so you can see all the fingers sticking out like feathers! Cut out a tiny turkey body and glue on top of the smallest hand, and there you have your family handprint turkey. If you want this craft to be a more long-lasting keepsake, you can trace the handprints onto wood and have them cut out and sanded down, quite like the block craft, and have your children help paint the hands.
Do you have a favourite Thanksgiving-themed craft to do with your children? Share it with us in the comments below!
