Thanksgiving is a holiday for the whole family. Despite the busy day full of prepping, there are many ways to make your kids feel included this holiday season. While preparing Thanksgiving dinner, keep your youngsters entertained and engaged with these fun Thanksgiving games, crafts, and activities for all the kids.
Handprint Turkeys
Handprint crafts are some of the most adorable mementos for parents. This engaging handprint turkey activity will help them express their artistic side. You can do them every year and see how much your young’un has grown.
You will need red, orange, yellow, and brown paint, a paintbrush, paper, and markers for this activity. Your kid’s hand will form the shape of the turkey, which they can decorate with markers. The thumb will be the turkey head, and the fingers will be the turkey feathers.
Butcher Paper Tablecloths
Skip the fancy holiday tablecloths and set down butcher paper at the kid’s Thanksgiving table. It makes for easier cleanup, has a rustic appeal, and is a blank canvas for your little Picassos. They will love drawing their favorite Thanksgiving things while the food is being served.
For this activity, wrap a few colored pencils or crayons and a napkin with some twine. Add a fill-in-the-blank activity next to each plate where your little ones can write down what they’re thankful for. Then, take a picture to remember what they’ve written every year.
Mini Pumpkin Hunt
Bring a little bit of Easter-inspired fun to your fall-themed holidays. Hide mini pumpkins around the yard and let the hunt begin. Your kids can collect the mini gourds in baskets and win prizes for the most pumpkins collected and just for being a part of the fun because everyone deserves a prize. You can also use last spring’s plastic Easter eggs and do a turkey egg hunt instead.
Yarn Pumpkin
Your kids will love to craft their own yarn pumpkins with this easy yarn pumpkin tutorial. These yarn pumpkins can be a centerpiece for the kid’s table and a cute keepsake for parents. All you need are a balloon, orange yarn, all-purpose craft glue mixed with equal parts water, brown and green pipe cleaners, scissors, a tape measure, and a plastic fork. It can get messy, but it’s so worth it!
Fall Bucket List
Make your Thanksgiving one to remember by giving your little ones a chance to tell you what they most want to do on this special day. Print fall bucket list leaf templates on colored paper, cut them out, and attach them to twine with clothespins to display your kids’ must-to activities. You can help them out by providing fall bucket list ideas or let their imaginations run wild.
Watch a Thanksgiving Classic
After everyone’s filled up on pumpkin pie, you can sit back with all the family and watch a classic holiday movie. There are plenty of family-friendly Thanksgiving movies available to stream online. You can’t go wrong with A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We’re also fans of Free Birds, Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow, and Garfield’s Thanksgiving.
Turkey Tag
This timeless game can liven up any Thanksgiving celebration. Let your kids decorate clothespins to look like turkeys with paints, googly eyes, and a cardboard cutout of their beaks and wattles. Then, you can attach them to the backs of their shirts and get ready for the ultimate Thanksgiving game of tag.
Thanksgiving Cross Stitch
Cross stitching is an easy and kid-friendly form of needlework that helps kids develop fine motor skills and refine hand-eye coordination. For the littler ones, you can give them a plastic needle and 11-count Aida cloth to make their own cross-stitch turkey. Download Thanksgiving cross-stitch patterns online, and your kids will be engaged for hours.
Stuff the Turkey
Your kids won’t be able to get enough of this Stuff the Turkey game. The point is to toss the “stuffing” (paper balls) inside the DIY turkey. You can put it as close or far as needed, depending on the kids’ age.
You can make your own turkey with a large brown paper bag, two small brown paper bags, some tissue paper, glue, and some wads of colored paper to represent the stuffing. White can be onions. Red can be cranberries. Green can be celery. Brown can be the bread.
Leaf Bowl Centerpiece
Add an autumnal flair to your Thanksgiving table with this DIY leaf bowl centerpiece tutorial. You need some fall leaves, glue, scissors, a brush, plastic wrap, and a glass bowl. Wrap the bowl in plastic wrap and apply glue evenly with a brush to the plastic wrap. Then, stick on the leaves, ensuring that the ends overlap.
Cut off the leaf’s petioles for a cleaner look. Spread a thin layer of glue on the leaves and leave them to dry overnight. When completely dry, remove the plastic wrap from the bowl, which will have bowl-shaped leaves.
Fall Bookmark
If your child is a big reader, making their own fall bookmark will be a fun activity they can cherish every time they open a book. Just cut out a leaf shape on felt and glue it on a popsicle stick. Add a different colored thin strip of felt in the middle to be the leaf’s midrib.
You can check out some Thanksgiving books for kids at the library beforehand, just in case your young’uns want a reading break.
Thanksgiving Escape Room
For the older kids, these Thanksgiving escape room ideas require minimal or no setup, so you can let them run the show while you complete other Thanksgiving tasks. You can find many downloadable and printable escape room kits online that provide clues and codes for kids of all ages. Your kids will put their thinking caps on and work together to solve these puzzle-based games.
Turkey Leg Ring Toss
This one’s a fun game for the whole family. The Turkey Leg Ring Toss game can easily be made with a large brown paper bag, a small white paper bag, some newspaper, and some glow sticks to use as rings. You can also use mini emergency cones and yellow and white spray paint to make DIY candy corn for the ring toss game.
To make the turkey leg, stuff the bottom of your bags with newspaper. Place the white bag over the brown one, squeeze the tops to make them look like the bone of the drumstick, and tape them together. Now, you can test your throwing skills with glow stick rings and have some day- or nighttime fun.
Mini Pumpkin Tic Tac Toe
Mini pumpkins are versatile enough to be used for decor, food, or games. This mini pumpkin tic tac toe game is easy to set up. Use kraft paper, a chalkboard, or any other kid-friendly surface, and use orange and white pumpkins for each player.
Leaf Buddies
Similar to looking up at the clouds, you will find various shapes and sizes by looking down at the fallen leaves on the ground. Head on a nature walk with your tykes, let them pick out their favorite leaves a few days before and press them in a heavy book. Then, your kids can add facial features with a black-and-white marker and create their own little leaf buddies.
Pumpkin Patch Stomp
You don’t need much for this easy fall-inspired pumpkin patch stomp game. Fill orange balloons with small candy or coins to keep them from floating away, and add a printable leaf on top to give them an authentic look. Then, let your little turkeys stomp away as they try to get the most candy prizes.
Sponge-Painted Turkey
Sponges produce a unique texture when used as painting tools. For this craft project, your kids will need to cut out feathers and the face of the turkey and add some googly eyes. You can cut sponges into strips for them to use to paint the feathers in fall colors. An alternative to this craft is to make a paper plate Turkey or use corn on the cob instead of sponge strips.
Thanksgiving Bingo
This all-ages game is a fun way to get the whole family involved. Download and print free Thanksgiving bingo cards and laminate them to make them last year after year. Use mini pumpkins or candy corn as markers to add another festive touch to the game.
Turkey Waddle Game
Get your blood pumping with a turkey relay race. Participants will place an inflatable turkey or any type of balloon between their legs. Without using their hands, they must complete the race without dropping the turkey.
If they drop it, they must go back to the start line and start over. When one team member has completed their part of the race, they hand off the balloon to the next player. The first team to complete the race wins.
Autumn Wind Chimes
This activity gets your kids out of the house and on their feet. Go on a nice walk in nature to collect sticks, rocks, pine cones, and other natural decorations for their homemade wind chimes.
Keep a hot glue gun, twine, beads, and other craft supplies on hand to assemble the chimes. For this project, tie two sticks together to make a cross, paint the rocks with fall colors, and let the kids tie their findings onto the wind chime strands.
Pinecone Crafts
Googly eyes and colorful pipe cleaners can instantly transform a plain old pinecone into your child’s favorite craft project. It’s easy and simple for all ages. Just glue the googly eyes on the pinecone. While that dries, cut out three inches of the pipe cleaner and bend them to form two bunny ears. Glue the feet on the pinecone, and you have an impossibly cute pinecone friend.
If you have some brown and yellow construction paper, your kids can transform the pinecone into a turkey with this easy DIY pinecone turkey craft tutorial. Yellow, orange, red, and brown pipe cleaners can be molded to look like tail feathers, Use the printable pine cone turkey pattern and cut out its beak and head, adding googly eyes, and a bit of red pipe cleaner for its snood. Instead of pipe cleaners for feathers, you can use artificial colorful feathers or fall leaves.
Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt
Your kids will have a blast searching indoors and outdoors for Thanksgiving-inspired items like mini pumpkins, feathers, leaves, fruits, gourds, corn on the cob, hay, pinecones, and much more. Don’t be surprised to see adults get in on the action and feel like a kid again.
Leaf Foxes
Challenge your kids to find the most colorful fall leaves they can, or buy some artificial ones to spread across your yard and use the extra ones for decoration. Fall leaves have a similar shape as a fox, making it easy for kids to fill in the rest. Just add a small brown pom pom as the nose on the tip of the center leaf lobe and place cut-out or googly eyes in the center of the leaf.
Fill a Gratitude Jar
One clever way of showing gratitude is to have the whole family fill a gratitude jar. Everyone can write what they are grateful for on a piece of paper and put it in a decorated gratitude jar. Then, you can read them aloud and try to guess who wrote each one.
Fall Leaf Necklace
Let your kids transform the color of fall into a fashion statement. Use leaves from your yard or from a craft supply store, pre-cut string 18 inches long, and a hole puncher. Punch holes into each leaf and let your aspiring designer create a colorful and stylish masterpiece they can wear all day long.
Apple-Dipping Station
For this interactive dessert station, you will need a spill-friendly tablecloth, pre-cut apple slices, wooden skewers, caramel, crushed nuts, mini marshmallows, and all the fixings. Your kids will love customizing their caramel apple pops with their favorite toppings.
Thanksgiving Menu Display
Have your older kids write the Thanksgiving menu on a chalkboard with white or colored chalk. Add an artistic flair by using free printables of a turkey, covering the back of the page with chalk, and tracing over the turkey with a pencil with the chalk-side down on the chalkboard. This leaves an outline of the turkey on the chalkboard that your kids can go over with colored chalk. Use a vintage mirror and water-based paint pens as a rustic chic alternative to chalkboards.
Break the Wishbone
After you are all done carving the turkey, set the wishbone aside to dry. When all the dishes are cleaned, you can let the kids break the wishbone, and whoever gets the biggest piece can make a wish. Remind them not to say their wish out loud.
Thanksgiving Photoshoot
Capture heartwarming memories by setting up an area with Thanksgiving props and letting your kids create their own holiday moments. A photoshoot is also a great way to incorporate any crafts they have completed that day, such as a DIY pilgrim hat, turkey crown, and other holiday-inspired crafts.
Touch Football
Burn calories and bond with your entire family with an annual touch football game. Keep everyone safe and sound by following a few simple rules. Everyone, young and old, is more than welcome to participate. Warning: you may get a little muddy.
Thanksgiving Bowling
Get the entire family on the fun with this exciting Thanksgiving bowling game. You can set up your bowling alley as simple or complex as you want. We recommend using hay bales to create a bowling lane.
Use small or medium butternut squashes for the pins, actual bowling pins, or create turkey pins with large brown plastic cups and some construction paper. Use mini pumpkins, a tennis ball, or other round objects as your bowling ball.
Complete Your Thanksgiving with Wilco Farm Stores
Fun activities, turkey crafts, and more family fun is the recipe for a happy Thanksgiving. Whether you are looking for a Thanksgiving day treat for your dog or straw bales for outdoor decoration, Wilco Farm Stores is your number one holiday destination.
