Thanksgiving Crafts and Games for Kids

Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away and I can’t wait for all of the delicious food! I held a Thanksgiving craft and game night with my kids and a few nieces the other night and we all had a blast! Whether you are in charge of a Thanksgiving class party or preschool party activity or looking for fun things to keep the kids occupied while the feast is being prepared, these Thanksgiving crafts for kids and Thanksgiving games will be a hit!

Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids

Milk Bottle Turkey Craft

Supplies Needed: 
Clear Glass Milk Bottle – comes as a 12 pack
Brown Acrylic Paint
Foam Craft Sheets – cut into the shapes of the feathers, beak and gobbler
Assorted Bulk Feathers
Black Googly Eyes
Hot Glue Gun

The first step is to squirt about 2 teaspoons of brown acrylic paint into each milk bottle and have the kids swirl them around until the entire inside of the bottle is coated with paint. Turn the milk bottle upside down on a paper towel and allow the excess to drip off. We set ours aside and did a few other crafts while this took place. Then use a hot glue gun to attach the black googly eyes, beak and gobbler.

Once the kids placed their foam and real feathers where they wanted them, I used hot glue to attach them all together and then glued the entire piece to the back of the milk bottle. They turned out DARLING, and they said this was their favorite craft of the four we did. They will make the cutest Thanksgiving centerpieces – don’t you think? I also thought for a more disposable version it would be cute to use an individual bottle of chocolate milk and do the same concept to give as a little treat.

Gratitude Tree

Supplies Needed:
“Tree of Thanks” Craft Kit – comes as a package of 12
Markers
Hot Glue or Foam Glue

Each year we do a family Gratitude Tree for the entire month of November, in the past we have made a homemade version. These Thankful Tree Craft Kits were great because the kids could do most of the project on their own (as long as they can write/spell) and as they were completing it they were talking about all the blessings they could write down – as a Mom it was music to my ears!

Once they filled out the leaves, I helped them glue them to the branches using hot glue. If you had time to allow them to dry overnight you could use craft glue as well. These are light enough to easily hang on the fridge, but since they are constructed of foam, they will hold up better than any paper version.

Thanksgiving Charm Bracelet

Supplies Needed:
Harvest Bead Assortment – comes with 500 pieces which would be great for a classroom!
Silvertone Thanksgiving Sayings Charms – comes with 4 sets of 6 words for 24 total charms–from Oriental Trading
Thin Elastic Cording
Clear Pony Beads

I really loved these Thanksgiving charm bracelets. I gave each girl a length of elastic with a pony bead tied at the end and an equal number of silver charms, pony beads and the Harvest Bead Assortment foam shapes. They put them on their bracelets in the order they preferred and I helped tie them together. They loved wearing them and I especially loved the sayings on the silver charms! It was an easy craft to put together and an easy one for little hands to do!

Thanksgiving Finger Puppets

Supplies Needed:
Thanksgiving Placecard Craft Kit – comes with 4 sets of 3 figures: turkey, female pilgrim and male pilgrim; from Oriental Trading
Craft Foam Sheets – cut into rectangles and glued on 2 sides to make a finger puppet sleeve

This was my personal favorite. We used the foam adhesive backed figures in the place card craft kit and turned them into finger puppets! We followed the directions for assembling each figure but left a little bit of the backing on the pieces. This allowed us to adhere it to the foam finger puppet sleeve, but didn’t leave any overhang with a sticky back. If you prefer, you can just cut a larger finger puppet sleeve.

Thanksgiving Games for Kids

In between the crafts we played two fun and simple games that again, would work great for a preschool/classroom party or for your kids to do on Thanksgiving! They were great to get the kids moving after sitting and crafting for a bit.

Turkey Trot

Supplies Needed:
Turkey Fun Dessert Plates – write with a marker a number on each one for the number of kids playing
Music
Numbers in a bowl/bag to draw out

We played this just like a cupcake walk. Each child stood next to a plate to begin and when the music started they danced around the circle. When the music stopped each child stood by a plate. I drew a number out of the bag and the child standing by that plate came out of the game, bringing their plate with them. We continued to play until we had a winner!

Turkey Timer

Supplies Needed:
Plush Turkey Toy
Kitchen Timer

One child was sent down to our basement to hide the turkey. When she returned, the kitchen timer was set for 1 minute and the kids raced downstairs to try to find the turkey before the timer went off! They could have played this for an hour – they really enjoyed this one and it was really simple to do!

Want even more? I’ve got a round up of really great THANKSGIVING CRAFTS FOR KIDS for you (the gumdrop turkeys are a MUST!) as well as an entire THANKSGIVING PRESCHOOL PARTY PLAN. Check them out, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!