Fun Thanksgiving Craft Ideas for Kids

Making great Thanksgiving gifts and crafts can help kids realize the importance of the holiday in its own right – not just as a hurdle to be passed before they get to Christmas. Besides being fun activities to do together or independently while you’re trying to prepare for guests, Thanksgiving crafts make great decorations for your home and table. Here are some great ideas for crafts targeted for different ages so everyone can get in on the fun.

Older children will love making table luminaries, and they are very cute decorations for your table or windows. You will need scissors, a brown paper lunch bag, white, yellow, red, and orange tissue paper, glue stick, sand or rocks, LED tea lights, and a turkey template. (You can find one on Disney’s FamilyFun site or draw one for your child – it is just the turkey body without the feathers.) Another option is to use too-hard-to-eat Thanksgiving cookies and trace along them. It makes good use of cookies that you might have otherwise thrown away. (Just make sure they're not eaten after you've used them for tracing!)

On the seamless side of the lunch bag, cut a circle. Cut a slightly larger circle from white or yellow tissue paper. Next, cut thin triangles of the yellow, orange, and red papers for the features. The red paper can be used to make two wings. Glue wings and feathers onto the white or yellow tissue paper circle. Using the brown bag circle, cut the turkey body out using your template (or just draw one and cut it out). Glue this to the tissue paper collage you’ve made.

Line the edge of the hole in the brown bag with glue and the area immediately around it and lay the turkey on top of it and press firmly to secure it. Almost done! Put a few inches of sand or rocks in the bottom of the bag and situate an LED tea light into the bag. While you could use a votive candle, the LED light is much safer and it produces a beautiful glow with the brown, red, yellow, and orange papers.

Making photo napkin holders is a great activity for younger children who can still handle a pair of child scissors.

You will need scissors, glue, scrapbook or construction paper, tape, and digital photos or small copies that you don’t mind cutting up. Crop and cut photos so they measure about one inch by one inch. Glue the picture onto a square of colorful paper. Cut a paper strip, about 1 ¾ inches x 8 ½ inches and make a ring. Put a rolled up napkin (cloth is nice, but paper will do too) into the ring and then tape the ends together. Using tape, attach the photo to the front of the strip. These are great instead of place cards as well.

The next craft is great for a wide range of ages. The night before you are going to do the craft with your children, go outside and pick four or so leaves from a tree. They should be alive so they are easier to work with. Press the leaves between the pages of a heavy book overnight. The next day, glue the leaf to a piece of cardstock with the veins facing up. Cut around the leaf as closely as possible. This becomes your stamp.

Next, paint the leaf yellow, red, orange, green, or brown, and flip the leaf stamp over onto a piece of construction paper. Together, press down and count to 10 (practicing numbers is another plus of this craft). Pull the leaf stamp up to reveal the colorful leaf picture. Repeat this process with each leaf. If your child is older, you can prepare the leaf stamp and let her take over. With younger children, this is a great activity to do together. These can be used as fun Thanksgiving decorations or as place cards for your guests when they dry.

Younger children may just want to color printed coloring sheets (which you can find in abundance online), while older kids will want to get into glue, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, leaves, and more. Let them suggest craft ideas and work together to make them come to life. It is a great way to get children involved in and excited about Thanksgiving.