Happy Holidays! Best Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

With the holiday season approaching, your thoughts may be turning to fun activities to enjoy with the kids or craft ideas to keep the little ones occupied while you’re busy putting together the Thanksgiving feast.

Whether you’re looking for a simple make for the smallest members of the family or a more in-depth seasonal project for the older members of your clan, we’ve got you covered. Below you’ll find details of the very best thanksgiving crafts for kids that’ll keep everyone happy over the holiday!

Contents:

• Easy Thanksgiving Crafts for Toddlers
• Thanksgiving Crafts for Preschoolers
• Elementary School Thanksgiving Crafts
• Thanksgiving Crafts for Middle-Schoolers and Teens
• Thanksgiving Food Crafts
• Thanksgiving Paper Crafts
• Printable Thanksgiving Crafts

Easy Thanksgiving Crafts for Toddlers

Your infant will love these simple thanksgiving crafts—they’re great for developing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, too!

Create a Fun Footprint Turkey!

Kids will love this silly craft—the finished masterpiece can even be used as a thanksgiving card! This activity involves making paint footprints and creating a brightly-colored turkey adorned with your child’s face. It’s a lovely way to spend some stress-free family time together during the holidays.

Credit: craftymorning.com

Fall Leaf Puppets

This wonderful activity involves going outside with your toddler to collect a stash of fall leaves, twigs, and seed pods to make some cute seasonal finger puppets. It’s a perfect thanksgiving craft for kids of kindergarten age who’ll love hunting for seasonal ‘treasures’!

Apart from your outdoor haul, you’ll need some loo roll tubes, googly eyes, and glue. Help your little one create their puppet using the things they’ve found—you can even poke twigs through the tube for the ‘arms.’ Children will be delighted if you incorporate their creations into your Thanksgiving table decorations!

Credit: craftsbyamanda.com

Cute Paper Plate Pumpkins

Rocking paper pumpkin decorations are winners when it comes to easy Thanksgiving crafts for kids!

There are only a few things you’ll need to gather together for your child to make these paper plate pumpkins. Plus, they’ll be able to complete much of this activity on their own, just needing supervision and help with the cutting and stapling elements of the craft.

Thanksgiving Turkey Treat Box

These turkey treat boxes—perfect for handing out after the feast—are made from old egg cartons and are simple enough for toddlers to have a go at making.

This activity is also great for developing hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

Thanksgiving Crafts for Preschoolers

phBodrova/Shutterstock.com

For slightly older kids, these craft activity ideas are great ways to occupy your child or to create some calm amid the excitement of the preparations for the day ahead!

Playdough Turkeys

With just playdough, paint, a handful of wooden popsicle sticks, and some googly eyes, your little one will be able to make a vividly colored turkey masterpiece!

As an alternative to playdough, you could also use air-drying clay; be aware, though, that you’ll need to wait until the clay is dry before painting.

Pinecone Snowy Owls

For preschoolers with lots of energy to burn off, this craft is perfect as—like the fall leaf activity above—it involves spending time outside hunting for the key material needed: pinecones!

Once you’re tucked up warm inside again, enjoy making a cute set of snowy owls with the collected treasures to display around the house as part of your Thanksgiving decor!

Pumpkin Paper Bag Craft

All you’ll need for this activity is a paper bag, a few sheets of old newspaper, a couple of cut-out leaf shapes, an orange marker pen (or orange paint), and a small amount of raffia.

Helping your child write—or writing on their behalf—the things they are thankful for on the leaves is a lovely way to make this Thanksgiving craft extra meaningful.

Easy-Make Pilgrim Hat

Why not set up this craft for the children in your household on the morning of Thanksgiving, so the little ones can wear their finished hats during the meal? They also make for a great opportunity to talk about the origins and history of the Thanksgiving celebration.

Elementary School Thanksgiving Crafts

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Many of the Thanksgiving crafts for kids below can be enjoyed by elementary-aged children with little supervision—depending on exactly how old your child is, of course! These more challenging makes are fun, satisfying, and could give you the half an hour of peace you need to get on with preparing the turkey!

Pumpkin Pinch Pot

With some air-drying clay and orange and green paint, your child can create a cute little pot that’s perfect for potpourri, small items of jewelry, or other special items!

If this project is a success, why not encourage your kid to make a range of pinch pots in lots of different shapes and colors?

Colorful Salt Painting

This activity is sure to be a hit with younger and older kids alike! To create a colorful, Thanksgiving-themed salt painting, your child will simply need to draw their picture or pattern on a sheet of blank white paper, then go over the lines with glue. Next, show them how to sprinkle salt liberally over the picture and tap off the excess. It should now be left for around 24 hours to dry.

Next comes the best bit! Your child will love applying watercolors to the salt and watching how the paint slowly sinks in and blends with the other colors used in the design.

Thanksgiving Turkey Weaving

You’ll need a paper plate, acrylic paint, some yarn in autumnal shades, a small piece of brown felt, a small piece of yellow paper, googly eyes, and a marker pen for this activity.

The result of this weaving craft is impressive, and your child will be proud of their newly acquired weaving skills!

Crazy Thanksgiving Turkey Head

There’s nothing about this activity that kids won’t relish! With just a large cardboard box and a few easily found craft supplies, they can ‘turkify’ themselves with this out-there holiday make. They’ll love watching the entertaining masterclass video, too.

Thanksgiving Crafts for Middle-Schoolers and Teens

And even teens and kids in middle school don’t need to miss out on the thanksgiving fun! The activities below are just right for older children who are ready to take on a crafting challenge…

Turkey Copter

A STEM science and art activity, making a turkey copter really is as fun as it sounds! Plus, things don’t stop once the flying turkeys are made, as your kids will enjoy launching them, too! Prepare for a competition to see whose turkey stays airborne the longest…

You’ll find a link to the turkey template—as well as the masterclass video—below.

String Art Cards

Your older child will love getting to grips with this string art activity—and they can send the cards they create to friends and family members over the holiday season.

This craft can be easily adapted to any other celebration or occasion, so if your teen enjoys this activity, they can have fun designing cards all through the year.

Concertina Thanksgiving Pumpkin

Making a stunning concertina pumpkin is a perfect craft for a rainy fall day! All your kids will need for this activity is a book (that they—and you!—don’t mind being cut up), a craft knife or pair of sharp scissors, a few twigs and leaves, and some orange paint.

Upcycled Seasonal Display

Get your older kids to help with up-leveling your Thanksgiving table decor with this beautiful make that involves upcycling an old tissue box.

The end result may be so impressive that your guests will be asking where you bought it!

Thanksgiving Food Crafts

The wonderful food shared with friends and family is such an inherent part of thanksgiving celebrations. Below you’ll find some of the best food craft ideas that’ll allow your little one to be part of the preparations!

Fun Oreo Turkeys

Made with Oreos, frosting, candy corn, mini peanut butter cups, chocolate balls, and chocolate candy sprinkles, these sweet-treat turkeys are as good to eat as they are to make!

The amount of help they’ll need with this activity will depend on your child’s age, but even the smallest of smalls will be able to help with creating a flock of Oreo turkeys.

Fox Pumpkin Pie

This simple yet effective food craft is a great way of getting the children involved in preparing the dessert part of your Thanksgiving meal. Kids will especially love adding whipped cream decorations to their foxes, and the end result may be so cute that they’ll want to make lots more of these sweet slices over the holidays!

Fall Strawberry Acorns

All you need is melted chocolate, raisins, strawberries, chocolate sprinkles, and wooden skewers to help your child make a delicious bowl of strawberry acorns.

They’re so yummy that your only problem might be making sure there are some left for the Thanksgiving table!

Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

This is a lovely recipe to enjoy making with your child—and these sumptuous muffins will go down a treat after the Thanksgiving turkey! Plus, this activity is a great opportunity to practice weights and measurements with your little one.

Thanksgiving Paper Crafts

If you need a quick activity to keep your kids occupied over the holiday season and haven’t got time to head to the store for a basket full of art supplies, these Thanksgiving-themed paper crafts are perfect.

Easy Origami Turkey

All you need for this make is paper, so it’s a great alternative activity to screentime for kids when on a car journey to visit relatives.

Many people find origami to be extremely calming—so much the better if you’re finding holiday stress levels in your household are creeping up!

Paper Gratitude Wreath

Capture the spirit of Thanksgiving with this simple-to-make gratitude wreath. Ask your kids to decorate the paper leaves, and write on each something they’re thankful for.

When the wreath is complete, hang it on your door to welcome your holiday visitors!

Cornucopia Placemat Paper Project

Let your kids’ imaginations run wild with this paper craft that can be used to decorate the Thanksgiving table.

This lovely activity can be enjoyed by a group of children on the morning of Thanksgiving Day—and the adults may want to get involved, too!

Easy Peasy Turkey Bookmark

Once created, these fun turkey bookmarks can be sweet party favors for your Thanksgiving guests! Young and older kids alike can get involved in this relaxing make: giving you a few moments of peace to get on with the day’s preparations!

Printable Thanksgiving Crafts

For extra convenience, you’ll find a list of printable crafts below: simply print off the templates for easy crafting fun!

Build-a-Turkey Template

Print off this build-a-turkey template for a stress-free holiday activity. The template can act as a springboard for your child’s creativity: once the paper turkey has been successfully constructed, they can add glitter, sequins, feathers, or anything else they choose.

Credit: thepurplepumpkinblog.co.uk

Activities for the Kids’ Table

This set of three printable activity sheets is an excellent way to keep the kids occupied before and during the Thanksgiving meal. Place these packs on the kids’ table, one for each child, along with some crayons and felt-tip pens.

As well as coloring-in, the sheets also include a placemat template and a seasonal word search.

Lexi Claus/Shutterstock.com

Lexi Claus/Shutterstock.com

Thankfulness Sheets

Choose from a range of free printable ‘I am thankful for’ sheets to help kids connect with the true spirit of the holiday season.

Encourage children to write about both the big and the small things in their lives that they’re grateful for: you may be surprised by some of the results!

Credit: printabulls.com

Calm Crafting for a Peaceful Holiday

However much we enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, there are times when the pressure can mount up. The imminent arrival of a big group of guests, getting the meal prepared, and putting the house in order can all take their toll on our stress levels.

Kids can easily become overwhelmed during the holiday period, too. Giving your little (and older) one’s opportunity to get involved with one or more of the crafts detailed above can help provide a little oasis of peace in the day and help them rebalance amid all the hustle and bustle.

Does your family have any annual Thanksgiving craft activity traditions? We’d love to know how you keep your kids entertained throughout the holiday season—drop your comments in the box below!

The picture on the front page: FamVeld/Shutterstock.com