29 Thanksgiving Activities for Toddlers
Keeping toddlers entertained during the Thanksgiving season doesn’t have to be a challenge! With a mix of creativity, fun, and a touch of holiday spirit, you can engage little ones with activities that spark their imagination and keep them busy.
From sensory play inspired by fall to simple crafts celebrating Thanksgiving traditions, there are plenty of ways to involve your toddler in the holiday excitement.
These 29 Thanksgiving activities are perfect for little hands and curious minds, ensuring they stay engaged while you focus on hosting, cooking, or simply enjoying the day.
Thanksgiving Activities for Toddlers
1. Handprint Owls
Thanksgiving is a great time to encourage toddlers to explore their artistic side with handprint owls.
This delightful craft merges nature and creativity, using simple materials to captivate young imaginations.
Picture tiny handprints transformed into the bodies of vibrant owls. Colorful feathers add a whimsical splash, turning these hand-crafted birds into miniature masterpieces.
Complement them with googly eyes that bring the owls to life, giving each one its distinct personality.
2. Handprint Tree
Thanksgiving is a perfect time to engage toddlers in creative projects that harness their burgeoning artistic skills.
The handprint tree is a simple yet impactful activity designed to capture the essence of fall.
With vibrant red, yellow, and orange paper, children can create tree leaves using cutouts of their tiny hands.
This vibrant palette not only celebrates the vivid colors of the season but also aids in developing toddlers’ color recognition and fine motor skills.
3. Textured Popsicle Sticks
Transform Thanksgiving into a creative exploration for toddlers with textured popsicle sticks.
These simple sticks can spark the imagination with the addition of feathers, googly eyes, and colorful pasta.
Each touchable element brings a sensory dimension to play, captivating young ones with its textured allure.
Feathers offer a soft fluttering sensation, while googly eyes add a playful jiggly component to their creativity.
Colorful pasta presents a crunchy, tactile element that is visually striking and fun to handle.
4. Color Matching Game
This Thanksgiving-themed color-matching game brings a delightful twist to traditional sporting activities.
Perfectly designed for toddlers, it utilizes vibrant items like pom-poms, building blocks, or small toys that capture their attention.
Each item is paired with corresponding color swatches laid out on a mat, inviting your little one to explore the vibrant world of colors.
This sensory experience enriches their cognitive abilities, allowing toddlers to recognize and differentiate various hues.
5. Handprint Thanksgiving Icons
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to engage toddlers in creative play that celebrates the holiday’s essence.
One delightful idea is transforming little handprints into festive Thanksgiving icons.
Picture a tiny handprint morphing into a vibrant turkey, complete with colorful feathers, googly eyes, and a bright beak.
Acorns and pumpkins can also be crafted using these handprints, each ink-stained finger contributing to the autumn-themed art.
6. Pom-Pom Turkey Craft
Thanksgiving is a time for warmth and creativity, and what better way to engage toddlers than by crafting a pom-pom turkey?
This activity involves colorful pom-poms and paper cutouts, the perfect combination for tiny hands to explore textures and colors.
The turkey outline can be simple, perhaps just a round body and a cute, pointy beak.
Little ones will delight in choosing vibrant pom-poms and sticking them onto the paper to create a festive and fluffy Thanksgiving turkey.
7. Handprint Turkey Art
Creating Handprint Turkey Art is a delightful activity, blending the charm of a child’s unique hand and footprint with the vibrant hues of fall.
The art piece incorporates handprints as colorful feathers, each painted in shades of orange, red, and yellow.
The footprint serves as the turkey’s body, a playful representation that sparks joy.
To add character, googly eyes bring the turkey to life, while a simple triangle cut-out forms the beak.
8. Apple Sensory Bin
Apples are a quintessential fall item and a perfect theme for a toddler’s sensory bin during Thanksgiving.
Imagine a container filled with bright, mini apples that captivate young eyes.
Add wooden letters to introduce early literacy in a playful manner, and notice how they begin to recognize their shapes.
Scoops are a delightful addition, allowing toddlers to engage in scooping and pouring activities that enhance motor skills.
9. Color Monster Sorting
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to engage toddlers in fun and educational activities, and the color monster sorting game is perfect for this holiday.
Inspired by the beloved story “The Color Monster,” this game provides an interactive way for young ones to explore their world through colors and emotions.
Using simple materials like colorful pom-poms and jars, children are encouraged to sort by color, connecting each hue with a corresponding ‘feeling’ jar.
This activity not only enhances their color recognition and sorting skills but also opens the door to discussions about emotions, fostering emotional intelligence.
10. Balloon Lion Craft
With Thanksgiving around the corner, engaging little ones in creative crafts can enhance the holiday fun.
The balloon lion craft is ideal for toddlers, combining vibrant orange and yellow paper strips to mimic a lion’s mane, perfectly aligning with the warm autumn palette.
A cute face drawn on the balloon adds personality to each creation, sparking joy and excitement.
This artful activity, while not exclusive to Thanksgiving, seamlessly fits into the seasonal theme, offering entertainment and joy for everybody.
11. Feed the Turkey
Transforming an everyday creamer bottle into a turkey is an imaginative way to engage toddlers during Thanksgiving.
Use bright, colorful pom-poms as “food” for the turkey, which adds a playful twist to the activity.
The soft texture and varied hues of the pom-poms attract attention and stimulate sensory exploration.
Incorporating tongs helps develop a child’s fine motor skills as they practice gripping and transferring the pom-poms into the turkey’s “mouth.”
12. Color Sorting Shapes
Colored tape can be a fun, easy way to spark toddlers’ interest in sorting and categorization.
Setting up sections on the floor with bright, visible tape creates a clear, engaging boundary for young ones to explore.
Pair different colored sections with a selection of toys varying in hue and shape to capture attention.
This colorful setup turns a room into an interactive learning zone, where children can naturally gravitate towards sorting objects that match each section.
13. Feather Counting Game
Incorporating a playful element into learning can captivate a toddler’s interest, and the Feather Counting Game seamlessly does just that.
The tools are simple: turkey-shaped playdough figures and a selection of vibrant feathers.
Each turkey is affixed with a number, setting the stage for a colorful counting challenge.
The act of placing the feathers transforms an ordinary counting exercise into a vibrant and tactile experience.
14. Turkey Feather Match
Create an engaging turkey craft that captures both fun and learning for toddlers this Thanksgiving.
Use colorful construction paper to cut out feather shapes with numbers on them.
Each feather represents a unique number, adding a touch of educational purpose.
The turkey body can be made from a large circle of brown paper, with smaller circles for the head and eyes, and an orange triangle for the beak.
15. Dot Marker Numbers
Thanksgiving is a perfect time to engage toddlers in fun and educational activities.
One great idea is the Dot Marker Numbers game, which transforms learning into an interactive art project.
Imagine a vibrant drawing of a turkey with numbers surrounding it; this sets the stage for an engaging experience.
Armed with colorful dot markers, toddlers can interact with the numbers through the fun roll of dice, adding an element of surprise and excitement.
16. Leaf Turkey Craft
Creating a Thanksgiving craft with toddlers can be both fun and educational.
Using colorful leaves as feathers adds an element of nature and creativity to the project.
The main materials include a turkey cutout, vibrant leaves in shades of red, orange, and yellow, and some glue.
The leaves offer various textures, enhancing the sensory experience for toddlers. It’s not just about sticking leaves; it’s an exploration of colors and simple crafting skills.
17. Pom-Pom Turkey Drop
Cardboard tubes are a fun way to inspire creativity, especially when used to represent colorful turkey feathers.
Easily available and simple to set up, these tubes catch the eye with their vibrant hues that resemble the bright plumage of a turkey.
Pair them with soft, large pom-poms, which are safe for toddlers to handle and provide a tactile element for the little ones to explore.
Placing the tubes at varying heights on a wall introduces a playful and interactive challenge, encouraging young minds to experiment with gravity and coordination.
18. Stained Glass Turkey
Creating a stained glass turkey is an engaging Thanksgiving activity that introduces toddlers to art through a delightful mix of colors.
The project uses simple materials like cardboard and colorful painted paper scraps, making it both accessible and cost-effective for families.
Toddlers can choose from a spectrum of vibrant hues to form the turkey’s feathers, allowing them to express their unique artistic flair.
This craft emphasizes color recognition and eye-hand coordination, as children arrange and glue the colorful pieces onto the cardboard shape.
19. Nail the Turkey
Thanksgiving is a time for creativity and fun, especially when it comes to keeping toddlers entertained.
One delightful activity is transforming an ordinary pumpkin into a turkey. This involves using colorful golf tees, which act as turkey feathers, and a wooden hammer.
The vibrant colors of the tees make the pumpkin visually attractive, while the wooden hammer is both lightweight and easy for young hands to grip.
The pumpkin itself serves as a sturdy base, providing just the right resistance for the tees.
20. Turkey Shape Trace
One delightful activity to engage toddlers this Thanksgiving is creating a sensory bin filled with beans and turkey shape cards.
The beans offer a tactile experience, encouraging little ones to explore different textures.
The turkey-themed shape cards add an educational twist, featuring simple shapes like circles, triangles, and squares.
These cards captivate young minds, fostering shape recognition while delighting them with vibrant turkey designs.
21. Fall Matching Game
Fall matching games are an engaging way to introduce toddlers to the vibrant colors and symbols of the season.
Utilizing components like bright orange and yellow leaves, small acorns, and a large tree outline, these games capture the essence of autumn.
The leaves can vary in shapes and sizes, offering a tactile experience as children pick up and examine them.
Acorns, with their distinctive caps, provide an added element of fun and learning. The tree outline serves as a recognizable symbol that toddlers can easily associate with the fall season.
22. Turkey Bead Threading
Thanksgiving is a time for family and creativity, and toddlers can get in on the fun with turkey bead threading.
This delightful activity combines the tactile joy of playdough with the vibrant colors of beads, making it both visually and physically engaging for little ones.
The turkey’s base is crafted with playdough, solid enough to support pipe cleaners that serve as the threading apparatus.
Adding bright, assorted beads allows children to express their creativity while developing essential fine motor skills.
23. Gratitude Turkey Jar
Creating a Gratitude Turkey Jar is a splendid Thanksgiving activity for toddlers, combining creativity with a lesson in thankfulness.
This craft involves a jar, transformed to resemble a turkey, where each “feather” added by little hands represents a note of gratitude.
These colorful feathers, made from paper, provide a vibrant and engaging visual for toddlers.
A simple face added to the jar completes the turkey look, making it an inviting decoration in the home.
24. Turkey Mason Jars
This turkey-themed craft brings simple joy to toddlers and parents during Thanksgiving.
Start with mason jars, which become a canvas for little hands.
The idea is to plaster colorful tissue paper on the jars, creating a patchwork that mimics a turkey’s plumes.
Inside the jar, place a safe LED candle to cast a warm, flickering glow through the vibrant colors.
The glow transforms these jars into both a charming decoration and a comforting light source at night.
25. Dot Marker Turkey
As Thanksgiving approaches, parents are often on the lookout for fun, simple activities that can keep toddlers engaged and entertained.
One delightful craft idea is the Dot Marker Turkey.
This activity involves using dot markers to add vibrant colors to turkey feathers on a printable template, creating a visually captivating experience for little ones.
The use of dot markers not only sparks creativity but also helps in developing hand strength and precision, crucial skills for young children.
26. Thankful Turkey Craft
The “Thankful Turkey” craft is a delightful activity designed to engage toddlers in the spirit of gratitude.
This craft features a charming turkey outline, where each feather becomes a canvas for appreciation.
Parents and children can work together to list items toddlers cherish, such as their beloved teddy bear, the warmth of a sibling’s hug, or the joy of outdoor play.
These colorful feathers become an educational tool, encouraging language development and emotional expression.
27. Collage Turkeys
Gather your toddlers around and delve into the festive spirit with collage turkeys.
Begin by arranging a variety of colorful paper, scissors — handled by adults for safety — and glue sticks.
The vibrant paper serves as the feathers for turkey cutouts, providing a lively canvas for their creativity.
This activity is not just about making art; it encourages toddlers to explore colors and textures, enhancing sensory development. Each torn piece they stick brings fine motor skill practice too.
28. Paper Plate Turkey
Transforming a simple paper plate into a turkey is a delightful Thanksgiving craft that toddlers can enjoy.
The basics are straightforward: start with a plain paper plate, readily available at any store.
Add shredded paper for a textured look that mimics turkey feathers.
Use colored construction paper to cut out a beak and wattle to give the turkey personality.
29. Turkey Activity Box
For a delightful Thanksgiving Activity Box, gather items that capture the festive spirit and tactile curiosity.
Start with colorful feathers that flutter with the slightest breeze, adding a soft touch to the box.
Include mini pumpkins that are not only adorable but come in varying textures, providing an interesting feel.
Playdough is a must-have for molding shapes and sparking imagination; opt for seasonal colors like orange and yellow.
