I love making writing centers because not only does my daughter love them and play with them with her neighborhood bestie, but my students like them too. Children do not need to be formally writing to explore in a writing center; they can be at any stage of development, from making simple marks to writing in beautiful cursive. This Thanksgiving writing center is stocked with place cards and Thanksgiving greeting cards for children to use to help set the table and write a little note to someone special. I have updated the printables for 2025 so you can use cards that focus only on thankfulness, not the holiday itself—wondering why I did that? Read this article! Giving children the option to write something completely functional or something a little more creative teaches them that writing has multiple uses. For more writing center ideas check out this great resource!
I have the original free printable place cards for you here– just click on the image for the free download, print, cut out and fold. 
And the free printable Thanksgiving cards here:
I have updated this post with more printable options that do not include Thanksgiving, as explained in this post, not all schools decide to celebrate it, and I wanted to have options for these classrooms as well.
This is what the updated 2025 thank you cards for the preschool writing center look like: 
Click here for these updated cards.
For the writing center, I included envelopes, the printed, folded cards and place cards, pencils, colored pencils, washi tape, stickers, an eraser, and a pencil sharpener.
They got down to business immediately.
As you can see, no matter what stage of writing development your kids are at, the center and printables are a hit.
As are the stickers and washi tape, which aren’t JUST there to be pretty. Peeling the stickers off, placing, and ripping the washi tape are all good for fine motor development. They are pretty too.
The place cards were also a hit. Are you wondering why I let her misspell Daddy? Read more about invented spelling here!
I am going to leave this out for a few more days – printing out more place cards and cards if need be. Remember that writing is the other half of the literacy puzzle and offering your children opportunities to write for function and fun is important.
Find more great activities that focus on thankfulness for November here!
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