Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts for Kids

Providing Thanksgiving activities for your children is a great way to spend November. Young children enjoy coloring and painting pictures of turkeys and pumpkins. Older ones don't need to feel left out; there are plenty of ways for them to show their creativity.

Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts for Kids Under Four

The following arts and crafts projects can be good for toddlers. Place the child in a highchair so that he will be safe and able to focus. Then, provide him with some chunky, non-toxic crayons and a sheet of white or colored paper.

Fun With Crayons

One idea for the very young is to let them color with different colored crayons and use their artwork for the base of another craft. If your child can only mark or scribble on a piece of paper, this paper can be cut into strips and used for dinner napkin rings. With a little tape on the ends, the paper can be made into a circle and the napkin, cloth or paper, placed through the ring. If you want to make the rings more festive, you or an older child can add eyes or a beak or feathers to the strips of paper to make turkey napkin rings. (See the directions for Turkey Napkin Rings below.) How nice these will look on your Thanksgiving table!

Hand Turkeys

Another idea is one often used in preschool art classes at Thanksgiving. Trace your child's hand on a sheet of nice paper. Let your child color the hand. Add eyes and a beak and wattle to the face of this hand print (the thumb) and feathers to the other fingers. Date the piece of paper and save it. As your child grows, it's fun to remember how tiny he used to be. Sometimes, the child's hand is pressed into finger paint and then stamped onto the sheet of paper. This is a little messier craft, but the turkey has more of a hand look and feel to it.

Nature Art

Take pages of autumn leaves or pumpkins that your child has colored in a coloring book and mount them to a large sheet of brown craft paper. Frame them with yellow or orange construction paper or seasonal craft paper (paper with designs printed on it). Display the artwork in the family room or on the back of a room door.

Thanksgiving Arts and Crafts for Kids Five and Older

Here are three crafts with a turkey theme.

Turkey Centerpieces

What you need: Newspaper or magazine pages, medium-sized brown paper bags, glue, beady or googly eyes, scissors, red balloon. rubber band, and paper grocery bags

What to do: Ball-up newspaper or magazine pages to make the head. Stuff the newspaper into the bottom of a medium-sized brown bag. Next, form a neck by twisting the top of the bag. Glue the eyes onto the bag, and then use the red balloon to form a wattle onto the face. For the turkey's body, use one paper grocery bag. Cut a hole through the front of the bag an inch from the bottom and fit the neck into it. Stuff the body 2/3 full with newspaper. Close the top of the bag with the rubber band. For the tail feathers, cut four large half-circles from the remaining bag. Glue them in layers to the back of the body.

One or two of these turkeys will decorate your table elegantly.

Turkey Napkin Rings

What you need: Colored construction paper, beady or googly eyes, glue, and scissors What to do: Cut six-inch strips of brown construction paper and glue the ends together. Glue two eyes on the face and around the face area of the strip, glue feathers made from different colors of construction paper. Add a beak in the center of the face. These napkin rings will come in handy at your Thanksgiving feast.

Turkey Headband

What you need: Cardboard cereal box, scissors, brown paper bags, colored construction paper, glue, white pom-poms (small), black marker

What to do: From the brown paper bags, cut a circle 3 1/2 inches in diameter for the turkey's head. Cut a 3-inch-wide band to fit around your child's head. Cut a strip 5 by 1 1/2 inches from the cardboard box. This will be the neck. Fold the cardboard three times to look like an accordion, then glue one end to the back of the paper circle. This is the tail. Fold yellow construction paper and cut out a small double triangle (1 1/2 inches along the fold). This will be the beak. Cut a rounded L-shape from red paper for the turkey's wattle. To make the eyes, draw a black circle on each pom-pom with the marker. Glue the eyes, wattle, and one side of the beak to the head. Let them dry. Then, glue the loose end of the neck to the center of the headband. Wrap the headband around your child's head. Glue the ends so it will fit snugly on your child's head. Out of construction paper, make feathers. Cut them out and glue them to the back of the headband near the tail.

Wearing a colorful headband is fun. Have children make enough for each family member or guest.

If your older children have time and interest, creating an autumn wreath will make for a nice decoration for your home. By using toilet paper rolls and a coat hanger, you can make a sturdy base for a wreath and add paper leaves or even real pine cones to it.

Buying Supplies for Arts and Crafts

You can buy supplies for these and other crafts at your local arts and crafts store like Michaels or A. C. Moore. You can also purchase items online and have them delivered to your door.

If you need some assistance with coming up with an art or craft project, Michaels has many project sheets, including one to make autumn magnets and pins.

Give Them As Gifts

While the crafts your children make are fun to hang on the refrigerator or walls, think about sending some of the finished artwork to relatives. What fun it is for grandparents to receive something your child has created! Now their refrigerator will be the showcase of the masterpieces and look festive for the Thanksgiving holidays.

Thanksgiving arts and crafts for kids can become an annual tradition. Make it one in your family.

Books to Help With Craft Ideas

Check these books out of your library or purchase them at your bookstore. Both are filled with simple crafts for your children to do.

• 175 Easy-To-Do Thanksgiving Crafts

by Sharon Dunn Umnik

• Crafts for Thanksgiving

by Kathy Ross and Sharon Lane Holm