Welcome, brilliant parents and festive planners! This Thanksgiving, let’s turn the ordinary into the extraordinary with enchanting activities that will sparkle in your children’s memories. Imagine your living room transforming into a playground of creativity, your kitchen becoming a wonderland of scents and tastes, and your family’s laughter weaving through it all like a warm melody.
We’ve handpicked a cornucopia of Thanksgiving activities designed not just to occupy your little ones, but to inspire them, engage them, and maybe, just between us, give you a moment of well-deserved peace. So, grab your crafting hats and your game faces; it’s time to make this Thanksgiving not just another dinner, but a family adventure to treasure!
Fun Activities For Thanksgiving Dinner Table
Thanksgiving Jokes And Fun Facts Free Printables
Cheesy jokes and fun Thanksgiving facts are entertaining and a great Thanksgiving dinner table decor. Make these cards using cardstock paper and free printables. Grab a card and learn some random facts about turkeys—What is the key to a great Thanksgiving dinner? Answer: The turKEY!
Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation Cards
These Thanksgiving dinner conversation cards could become a new family tradition creating memories around the Thanksgiving table. The printable cards are excellent for instigating meaningful conversations with the whole family and friends.
Thanksgiving Kids’ Table Game
Colorful acorns and handmade dice keep kids busy waiting for the food. It’s a fun art activity for kids of all ages; everyone can join the fun game. The object of the Thanksgiving game is to collect the most acorns. A die roll may show L for passing an acorn to the left, R for the right, C for the table, and a bright dot lets you keep the acorn.
Turkey Pinnata Table Centerpieces
While waiting for the real turkey dinner, these adorable paper-mache mini turkeys is a fun way to entertain young children. Filled with candy corn, treats, and fun prizes, they can be used as place cards or decorations for table centerpieces—at least until the kids discover the “stuffing.”
Setting The Dinner Table Thanksgiving Activities For Kids
Coloring Thanksgiving Table Cloth
A coloring book table cloth will engage restless toddlers and young artists! Draw place settings and coloring shapes for kids to color beforehand or at the dinner table. Older kids can write gratefulness notes.
Turkey Table Napkin Holder
An easy-to-fold napkin holder uses napkins for the turkey tail. Print a colored template on white cardstock or let the kids decorate the napkin holder. Folding the napkins is a great motor skills activity for toddlers.
Thanksgiving Turkey Treats
These cute google-eyed turkey crafts with tummies filled with fall-colored candy treats are easy to make. The pipe cleaners make the most adorable beak and feet; glue on googly eyes to the brown pipe cleaner head and fill its tummy with M&Ms or other delightful fall-colored candies. An excellent activity for children at school or home and an exciting decoration for the table.
Thanksgiving Turkey Balloons
These colorful turkeys are the ultimate decoration for Thanksgiving. Glue googly eyes, a beak, and feathers on a yellow balloon, and it transforms into a delightful turkey decor for the kids’ table.
Thanksgiving Crafts Ideas For Preschoolers
Paper Plate Pumpkin Thanksgiving Craft Ideas
A bright, colorful paper plate for happy toddler play-time and sturdy enough to use on the holiday table. With orange tissue paper, a green piece of construction paper, and glue, toddlers will have fun practicing fine motor skills.
Free Printable Thanksgiving Turkey Crowns Crafts
These turkey crowns are one of the best activities for toddlers and the entire family to wear for Thanksgiving. Create the crowns according to head size and print on white card stock, ready for preschoolers to glue and decorate the feathers.
Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Crafts For Toddlers
Create art with toilet paper rolls and colored paper! The turkey craft activity for toddlers is a fun activity with mainly household supplies. Use toilet paper rolls for the turkey body, add wiggly eyes and glue an orange beak to it. The feathers are tissue paper squares in various colors clued together to create fanlike feathers.
You could also cut all the pieces of paper in feather shapes and let kids decorate the feathers or write on them things they are grateful for.
DIY Pumpkin Mason Jars Crafts
These mason jars are cute gifts to celebrate a happy Thanksgiving and show appreciation for friends, family, and teachers. Painted in pumpkin colors with decorated mason jar lids, you can fill them with candies, cookies the kids baked, or other goodies.
Turkey Cutting Craft With Free Printable
The turkey craft-free template prints the turkey pieces on white paper to cut out and color. It is the perfect child craft for coloring and practicing scissors techniques. Kids can create unique turkeys by cutting the feathers on construction paper and coloring them in colorful shades, glue dots, googly eyes, a bunch of corn pits, pieces of candy corn, or simple shapes.
Fun Thanksgiving Learning Activities For Toddlers
Thanksgiving Color Match Activity
A simple game involves color-matching candy and feathers and practicing counting skills. Use Fall’s colorful leaves as an inspiration for colors. The color matching activity is fun to play alone or with all the kids in the family or neighborhood. First, use the feather stencil template and print feathers onto foam or card stock. Next, place a bowl of candy in the same fall colors in front of your toddler. The goal is to recognize and put the same colored candy onto the matching colored feather.
Stuff The Turkey Activity
Stuff-the-turkey is another favorite activity because it involves treats. Paste a cute turkey face on red solo cups, hand a pair of tweezers to each child, and place a container filled with candy and pom poms and instructions on an activity card. The idea is to stuff the turkey (cup) according to the number and color instructions on the cards. Handling the miniature tweezers improve motor skills and hand-eye coordination.
Pumpkin Pie Fractions Thanksgiving Activities
The pumpkin pie fractions activity puzzle game is a craft idea that engages your child and teaches them math and problem-solving skills—paint paper plates to look like pumpkin pies and cut each pie into fractions. Then mix up all the pieces and challenge kids to use the fractions to make whole pies. It’s a fun learning activity for kids of all ages. A younger child may not understand fractions, but they can participate in the pumpkin activity and the pumpkin pie puzzle game.
Thanksgiving Activities And Games For Kids And Adults
Gratitude Scavenger Hunts Thanksgiving Activities
Scavenger hunts are the perfect games for your busy toddler, bored teens, and frustrated adults to play while waiting for the food. Varieties in this exciting game are endless.
Photo Scavenger Hunt Game
The gratitude photo scavenger hunt Thanksgiving game makes people pause and think about what they are grateful for in life. Set a time limit for play and geographic boundaries. Give each group a list of items they must photograph to be shared later. For example, Something I’m Grateful for that is older than me, has words on it, or is in nature.
Mini Pumpkin Hunt Game
Instead of an Easter egg hunt, hide mini pumpkins and gourds in the garden for little ones to find. Make sure you have enough pumpkins left for the pumpkin pie.
Thanksgiving Pictionary Free Printable Game
Pictionary is a fun game for the entire family, and Thanksgiving Pictionary gives the holiday a festive spin. Write Thanksgiving-related words on slips of paper, throw them in a bag, hat or bowl and follow basic Pictionary rules.
Turkey Waddle Relay Race
The best game ever! This fun turkey activity will have the most severe family member giggling. You need an inflatable turkey for each team. Without touching it with their hands, the first member waddles with the turkey between their legs to an object and back to the starting line to hand over the turkey to the next person. Dropping the turkey means starting over.
Play a prank on hungry family members. You could always exchange the real turkey and dish up an inflatable one when nobody is watching.
Family Reunion Who Did That Game
A family fun game for multiple families to play when reunited during the Thanksgiving holiday. With stories, pens, and strips of paper, share fun facts and memories of family members! You don’t need game pieces, just fun facts and incredible stories for this entertaining Thanksgiving game.
Thanksgiving Touch Ball Game
A friendly game of touch football is the perfect activity to bond, laugh, and have fun before the food is on the table. According to these silly Thanksgiving-touch football rules, the most important is that everyone plays, including mom, grandpa, and the kid next door. The other most important rule is don’t go indoors with muddy shoes, or mom could—let’s put it this way, you could miss Thanksgiving dinner.
Gratitude Thanksgiving Activities For Kids
DIY Gratitude Journal
The perfect gratitude activity for older kids! Made with tea-stained tissue paper, this gratitude journal is a fun craft activity kids will continue to use after Thanksgiving. With a hot glue gun and craft supplies, your 5th-grader can complete this craft project using their unique design.
Thankful Turkey Thanksgiving Activity
The thankful turkey gratitude game is a great way to teach toddlers and younger kids about gratitude. Create a turkey body from a brown paper bag and feathers from colored construction paper. Introduce the featherless turkey to your kids at the beginning of November and talk about the meaning of being grateful. Then, each morning ask the kids what they are thankful for and write it on a feather and stick it with a glue stick on the turkey body.
More Thanksgiving Activities For Kids
Here are fun ideas for all ages to celebrate the holidays with loved ones. These Thanksgiving activities and games are great ways for parents and kids to spend time together.
- One of the best Thanksgiving activities for kids is to read Thanksgiving books together. Make a list of books that tell stories about being thankful and the history of the Thanksgiving holidays.
- Take a walk, hike, or bike ride with the whole family. This fun activity for kids will help them exercise, and parents can turn it into a fun learning experience about nature.
- Build a Thanksgiving-themed jigsaw together or make it into an amusing competition for kids. Teams can build the same jigsaw puzzle, and the last to finish must wash the dishes.
- See who can wear the craziest Thanksgiving socks and let the kids be the judge. Also, have extra pairs for family members who “forgot” to wear funny socks.
- Enjoy a movie night watching movies related to the holidays with lots of popcorn and turkey craft treats.
What is your family’s favorite thanksgiving activity?