Thanksgiving
For this activity you will need a paper plate, clothes pins, brown and yellow construction paper, scissor, glue, and something to color with. For some reason I had craft confusion and used paint and markers, but that’s overkill.
First, make your paper plate brown–we finger painted because that allows us to work on sensory stuff at the same time. I’m seeing major progress in that my son will paint and also that he’s stopped trying to put the paint in his mouth. Little victories! 
Next, cut out a head and beak from the construction paper. Glue them to the plate.
Then you need to color your clothespins. I used markers and did it myself since it’s a little beyond Charlie’s abilities. If your child can do it by themselves, then let them.
Now, for the fun part!
The clothespins become the turkey’s feathers. Use the feathers to do a variety of activities. For us, we were working on identifying colors. You could also do patterns
Since this was our first time doing the activity, we started with only two clothes pins and asked Charlie to select “red” or “blue.” Trying to grab the clothespins has the added bonus of being fine motor practice, but if he’s not able to squeeze properly, they still come off with a tug. If your child has trouble with fine motor, be sure to place the pins far apart to make it easier. 
When Charlie correctly identified the blue pin and threw it on the floor, we called it a day!
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Katy is a mom of one who loves art, mystery novels, and anything involving peanut butter–she blogs about raising her little miracle at Bird on the Street.
Did Thanksgiving sneak up on you? This month has flown by but thankfully we have a bunch of great crafts from years past to highlight. Here is a collection of some of my favorite Thanksgiving kids crafts. Try to carve out some time this coming week to make something fun with your kids.
I am thankful for the time I have spent crafting, painting and creating with my son. Today’s thanksgiving craft asks kids to show us what they are thankful for by drawing a picture, and then making a fall fringe frame . This is a great opportunity to practice patterns and/ or counting and if mess makes you squirm using double stick tape will take care of that!
- Gather your materials. You will need some white paper or construction paper, orange, red, brown and yellow construction paper, a paper cutter or scissors, crayons and double stick tape.
- Start by giving your child the paper and crayons ( or markers, pencil crayons or even paints) and ask them to draw a picture of what they are thankful for.
- While they draw cut the colored construction paper into small strips.
- If your child can’t write yet ask them to tell you about their picture and label it for them. My son is thankful for hot chocolate and his sister, mostly just hot chocolate though!
- Add double stick tape to all the edges.
- Start adding the strips.
My son wasn’t in a patterning mood so we counted to 51 ( his most favorite number!) and then I added the rest. Interestingly enough the straightest sections were done by him. As you probably know adding these little strips are also a good fine motor workout. 
- Simple but meaningful!
I love sensory tubs and one of the reasons is illustrated beautifully in this post. They aren’t just a chance to scoop and pour ( although don’t discount the importance of that) they are also a chance to make believe, create a new mini landscape and practice imaginative play. Children love to explore so when you create a sensory bin allow them to add to it as well, it’s not a static item but rather a dynamic experience for them to create with.
- Gather your materials. You will need a big pan or plastic tub, some multicolored unpopped popcorn , red quinoa, and brown rice. You will also need some fall leaf confetti, and scoops. Obviously you don’t need to follow our contents exactly but I do love the corn since it ties into other Thanksgiving crafts so well. Orange lentils, wild rice, flax seeds etc… all have a fall feeling to them too.
- Pour the dried grains etc.. into the tub. Have your child help with this , my son loves ” cooking up” the sensory bins.
- Add the fall confetti. Be careful some of ours were pretty small, fabric leaves are another larger option for younger children.
- Add the scoops and containers and start playing.
- Follow your child’s imagination, we went and got some construction vehicles.
I get asked all the time what I do with these tubs after he’s done playing. I pop them into ziplocs and keep them , and pull them out for quiet play time often. The variety keeps him interested and as long as the bags are sealed from moisture and insects you can keep them indefinitely.
Thanksgiving Books
The Little Engine That Could Saves the Thanksgiving Day Parade by Watty Piper is unremarkable. The story is about a school band who has a flat tire and hitches a ride on the train to get to the Thanksgiving Day parade on time. My son liked the instruments and the train but the story was pretty boring and it was obvious to me why this was one of the only Thanksgiving books left at my local library. If you have a child who is wild about trains I would maybe check it out of the library but it’s not worth purchasing in my opinion.
Thanksgiving at the Tappleton’s by Eileen Spinelli is a really cute story that offers many opportunities for parents to talk about lying, disappointment and what really matters at Thanksgiving. The Tappleton’s Thanksgiving dinner is doomed, first the turkey falls in the pond, then there are no pies left at the bakery and then continues to get worse. No one wants to be the person to ruin the holiday dinner and keeps it a secret that the part of the meal that was their responsibility is ruined. Of course this means they end up eating liverwurst and pickles for dinner but Grandma saves Thanksgiving by reminding them all that it doesn’t matter what they are eating but who they are eating with.
Patty’s Pumpkin Patch 
I was going to post some of my previous Thanksgiving crafts when my son’s quiet time was a lost cause after 30 minutes ( you win some you loose some) so I gave him the option of staying in his room or coming down and quietly doing a craft so his sister’s nap wouldn’t be a gonner too. This is what we came up with! You don’t have to include construction vehicles in yours but I think it’s a good reminder not to take craft time too seriously.
- Gather your materials. You will need brown ( whole sheet), red,white, yellow and orange construction paper ( scrap paper would do well). You will also need glue, scissors and a marker.
- Draw a ear of corn on your brown paper.
- Cut your paper into smaller strips to make it easier for your child to cut them.
- Start cutting. We shared this task.
- If you want smaller kernels of corn, cut the paper into even smaller strips for your child to cut into pieces.
- Add glue ( and construction vehicles if desired).
- Using your hands or a front loader and dump truck add the cut pieces on the cob.
- Add more glue as needed and keep adding pieces.
- My son insisted on using his toy steam roller to press the pieces down so I grabbed a plastic bag to put between the craft and his toy to prevent glue everywhere.
- Let dry.
- Cut the husks from the corn.
- Color with a brown marker.
- glue the husks over the cob and let dry.
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