Hosting Thanksgiving this year or wondering how to keep the littles entertained for a whole week of holiday prep and all.the.things? Try these ideas to keep kids busy at Thanksgiving. Bonus: You’ll have some fun conversations and keepsakes to enjoy!
Create a Gratitude Tree
We started this as a way to recognize all of the things we’re grateful for. How we do it has changed over time: one year we used sticks and glued a leaf each day, one year we cut out a paper tree and put it on a closet door, taping a new leaf to the tree each day. A few years ago I happened upon an official gratitude tree in the Dollar Spot at Target and that’s become our tabletop version each year. I simply make new leaves out of construction paper each year and with a little love from a glue stick, our thankful leaves fill the tree during November.
Hint: You don’t have to do it all of November! It can fill as many days as you’d like or just be on Thanksgiving Day. Enlist family members to help. It’s a great conversation starter and fun to see what everyone says. When he was three, my son was thankful for milk. Not mom, not dad, but milk. We all have our priorities. Find more inspiration and options here.
Make Thankful Turkeys
A variation on the gratitude tree, a thankful turkey can be another fun way to teach gratitude and can be done on Thanksgiving Day. There are a variety of ways to do them with paper, adding “feathers” to the turkey’s tail for each thankful. Another favorite involves actual feathers, which kids have a blast playing with. All you need is a bag of feathers, construction paper and popsicle sticks. You can use a foam hand as your base or cut hands from construction paper, but I’ve found that the foam hands hold up better. The hand becomes your turkey body, where feathers will be glued, so sturdy is better.
Have the kids write what they’re thankful for on the popsicle sticks, write on construction paper feathers you’ll use to form the base for your real feathers, or write on the “body,” then decorate away. If you write on the sticks, they become part of the turkey’s plumage along with the feathers. All you need to add now is an eye and a beak. If you want to make it easy for the kids to play with them, add a popsicle stick as a handle and they can fan and play all day.
Go Hands – and Toes – In on Décor
Create a turkey like no other, or a fall tree with unique leaves, with little hands and toes. A set of blank canvases, non-toxic, washable paint (think fingerpaints) and little feet and hands and you have an activity, décor and fun all in one. This activity really does require adult supervision and involvement, so it might be better for pre-holiday, but it’s simple and fun, especially since the kids get dirty. We do these outside, with towels, etc. to clean up. Just use paper plates for the paint—and perhaps a paint sponge to make sure their hands and feet get good coverage.
For the turkey, do three handprints first, overlapping/placing them close enough together that once they’re dry, you can add the foot body. And note: both hands are needed so you have a full turkey tail. Add googly eyes and with a small brush, you can add details, even the year, so you can put them out again and again. For the tree, be sure to get enough paint on their arm so you have a good tree trunk, or simply paint the trunk in yourself (so put the handprint in the center of the canvas). Let the “tree” dry, then let the kids do leaves with their fingerprints.
Craft Tissue Trees
Another easy construction paper project to keep kids busy at Thanksgiving is to have them trace and cut out their hand and arm to make a tree. Paste that onto another piece of construction paper. Then let them tear and ball up bits of colored tissue paper they can glue on the tree. They can cover the tree, the ground, the sky with whatever “leaves” they like. There are variations on this where you cut slips of tissue paper and use those as leaves as well, so do whatever works for you/your kids. It’s about keeping kids busy at Thanksgiving, not creating an art masterpiece.
Decorate Placemats
There are placemats you can buy to decorate or to add an activity, but this is another DIT (do it themselves!) that is easy and keeps them busy. I use manila drawing paper (sized 12 x 18 inches), but you could also do butcher roll, regular construction paper, you name it. Crayons, colored pencils, markers – bonus if they’re new because that feels like a treat – and let them decorate. You can add names, drawings, fun messages, whatever they’d like. Or give them a theme and let them go at it. Our dinners are more casual and these placemats add a personal touch to the day.
Build Natural Art
Take a walk and let your kids gather items to use for decorating: small sticks, acorns, leaves, bits of bark, flowers, stalks of grass, small rocks, you name it. Get a large enough selection that you have bits to work with. Then give them some construction paper and challenge them to create a picture with the bits of nature you gathered. My son defaults to animals, but this example from the McNay Art Museum shares a portrait inspired by one the works in their collection.
If you don’t have time to go for a walk, your yard can also be a source of finds. You can let them glue their creations in place, or leave it loose and let them create again and again. It can be a guessing game where everyone works to figure out what the creation is or works together to create a story that fits the creations. Our finds for this year include things we’ve gathered as we’ve been walking our neighborhood, including a beetle carcass and a butterfly wing, so there’s no telling what might result. (Please tell me that other kids like to gather that stuff. Please?!?)
Enlist Kitchen Help
This one might make you groan if you dread having people underfoot while you’re cooking, but from chopping to mixing, kids can make great sous chefs. Put them to work doing things that help with meal prep. I admit I get frustrated with folks in my kitchen space, but I also remember watching my grandmother make her famous candied yams. I loved being a part of that and treasure those memories. I want my son to have those memories, too, and know the origins of the family recipes we include in our meal. Thanks to a self-contained chopper, he’s helped with nut chopping since he was three. He’s also mashed potatoes, mixed cornbread, and more. I purposely set things aside I know he can help with so there’s a role for him to play.
Celebrate Native American Heritage
November is more than just turkey, it’s also Native American Heritage Month and the Friday after Thanksgiving is Native American Heritage Day. You can get out and explore the Briscoe Western Art Museum (closed Thanksgiving Day) to see Native American art and artifacts, including Storytellers: Narrative Art and the West, an exhibition that explores how Native American and Western artists use narrative art to convey history, culture and identity. It features works that tell powerful stories of the American Southwest, blending traditional Native American art forms with contemporary perspectives. The exhibition includes the opportunity to add your story to a community story wall and has drawing stations for the kids to tell a story through pictures, making it family-friendly and fun.
I know what you’re thinking: Kids in an art museum? YES! They are more than welcome — and kids 12 and under get in free at the Briscoe, making it an affordable way to spend time together. We enjoy stopping by the Briscoe as we explore the River Walk and if you’re headed downtown for the Holiday River Parade, the Briscoe is a great stop before the lights come on along the River Walk.
Bonus Tip: The first Sunday of each month is “Locals Day” at the Briscoe. The museum welcomes all Bexar County and San Antonio residents to enjoy the museum and its exhibitions for FREE. There are monthly scavenger hunts for families to participate in and hands-on educational fun with Full STEAM Ahead. And this Thanksgiving, Sunday Dec. 1 is the museum’s annual Cowboy Christmas, where locals receive free admission, you can take pictures with Cowboy Santa and enjoy free arts and crafts. Want more free museum fun? Check out San Antonio’s free museum hours and be a tourist in your own town!
