Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts for Kids

Simple Family Fun

Thanksgiving arts and crafts for kids are a great way to prepare for Thanksgiving and spend some time as a family thinking about what we are truly thankful for. The following Thanksgiving kids crafts are suitable for all pre-school age groups but will require supervision and guidance from mom or dad.

Our easy Thanksgiving arts and crafts include preparing a nature table to decorate your Thanksgiving table, a simple Thanksgiving Tree and super-easy Indian Headbands.

Thanksgiving Nature Table

The Nature Table is a simple kids craft activity for Thanksgiving (or any time of year) to make children more aware of the world around them. Spend an afternoon walking around your neighbourhood collecting leaves, pods, pinecones, seeds and any interesting natural objects that you come upon.

To make the Nature Table, find a simple wooden plate to display your treasures on, to act as a centrepiece for your Thanksgiving table. Otherwise you can place a colored piece of cheesecloth over a side table or hall stand and display your found objects here. They can be accompanied by a candle which can be lit at the start of the evening meal.

Having a Steiner influence in our family we do a blessing before every evening meal.
Here is one that is perfect for the Thanskgiving dinner.

Earth who gives us all this food
Sun who makes it ripe and good.
Dearest Earth, and dearest Sun,
We will not forget what you have done.
Blessings on our meal.

Thanksgiving Tree

You'll Need

- a sheet of thick white cardboard
- pencil
- paint, markers or crayons
- construction/craft paper in Autumn colors
- markers
- scissors
- glue or tape
- glitter glue, sparkly pens or sequins (optional)

The making of the Thanksgiving Tree can be an activity that you do with your children in the lead-up to Thanksgiving or it can be done on the day, with your Thanksgiving guests. If you are doing it on Thanksgiving, be sure to prepare the trunk and leaves beforehand so that your guests simply need to write their Thanksgiving message and stick their leaf onto the tree.

Sketch a tree trunk with plenty of branches onto the cardboard, leaving plenty of room for all of your leaves to be stuck on later. Use brown construction paper, crayons or markers to fill in the trunk of the tree. Cut out various colored leaves, big enough for people to write a message on. Depending on the number of people participating you might like to give each person 2-3 leaves.

Each child writes one thing that they are thankful for on their leaves (parents can write for the littlies). The leaves can then be decorated with glitter glue, sparkly pens or sequins. Once dry the leaves can be taped/glued onto branches.

After the Thanksgiving dinner the kids can present their tree to the family with each child proudly saying what they are thankful for and why.