Find easy ways to entertain little ones at the Thanksgiving table. (Photo: iheartcraftythings.com/Getty Images/Michael's)
Dining with children is stressful enough. Now think about Thanksgiving. It’s the stress of a restaurant meal times 1,000.
The once-a-year meal takes longer to make and to eat. There are more people involved. And children are often out of arm’s reach at the kids’ table for the crowded holiday meal.
It’s important to take extra steps to occupy the youngest holiday guests. If you don’t, Thanksgiving could become chaos.
We’ve got your back. We’ve found six easy ideas that require minimal effort and ensure kids are satisfactorily occupied while the adults ready the table and then try to enjoy some turkey and fixings.
1. Have little hands lend a grateful hand
The Thankfulness Hand Print Tree only takes a handful of supplies and your child's hand. (Photo: Greenkidscrafts.com)
Keep little hands busy making a Thankfulness Hand Print Tree. Green Kids Crafts recommends that children kick off gratitude conversations and traditions by creating one great big thankfulness tree or several individual trees.
Supplies
- Construction paper (orange, red, yellow, brown and/or other earth tones)
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Marker
- Tape
Instructions
- Decide whether to make one large group Thankfulness Hand Print Tree or an individual tree for each child.
- Using a pencil, trace your child’s handprints or have your child trace his or her print onto the construction paper. These will be the leaves.
- Cut brown construction paper in half lengthwise to make the trunk.
- Cut out the handprints.
- Once the handprints are cut, ask your child what they are thankful for. Use a marker to write it down, or have your child write it down, on the handprints.
- If you are making a large wall or door Thankfulness Tree, tape up the brown trunk and then tape the handprint leaves onto the trunk.
- If each child is making his or her own tree, tape the leaves to a brown strip of construction paper then tape the handprint leaves to the the top of the trunk.
Read the full blog post with illustrations here.
2. No-mess table crafts
Turkey Plate Craft Kit by Creatology (Photo: Michael's)
You have plenty to do, if you’re the host or hostess with the mostest. So run on down to Michael’s and pick up a few low-cost items that require nothing more than the eager hands of children.
These build-a-turkey or -scarecrow plates are for ages 4 and up, sell for $5 each and come with dozens of foam stickers, wiggle eyes and 12 paper plates. The crafts store also sells Ashland assorted fall-themed wooden ornaments like scarecrows, turkeys and pumpkins, with markers for decorating. They are currently on sale for $0.75 each. All items are only sold in the store.
This craft sells for $1.50 at Michael's in stores. (Photo: Michael's)
3. Keep ’em laughing
Why not keep the kids busy with a Thanksgiving joke teller? (Photo: brendid.com/thanksgiving-joke-teller/)
The clever idea of keeping family chaos free at the kids’ table comes to us from a blogger known as Bren Did.
She created this printable kids activity called the Thanksgiving Joke Teller. You don’t even need to come up with the jokes. She’s taken care of that. You just need a printer, your hands to fold the squares with colorful turkeys and jokes on them into the shape of what you may know as cootie catchers or fortune tellers, and you’re set.
“The joke tellers provide just enough of a distraction for me to breathe, relax, and remind myself how blessed I am to have the whole rowdy bunch in my life,” she writes.
Don’t we all want that?
Find the printable and instructions here.
4. Dough’nt discount squishy power
Edible pumpkin dough can keep little hands busy at the Thanksgiving kids' table. (Photo: smartschoolhouse.com)
Edible pumpkin dough can easily be shaped into cute pumpkins and waiting at the table when young guests arrive, and it can be played with throughout the meal. (And in this instance kids can play with their food, because this DIY recipe, courtesy of Kelly Dixon at Smart School House, really is edible.)
Ingredients
- 1 cup of premade white frosting
- 2 ¾ cups of powdered sugar
- Orange food coloring
- Small craft stick for the stem
- Various pumpkin accessories like green cupcake liners or whatever you have in your home
- Various Play-Doh toys, or utensils from your kitchen
Instructions
- Add the powdered sugar to the frosting in slow increments using the mixing paddle attachment on your mixer, continually scraping the sides of the bowl. If you don’t have this type of mixer, just mix in a large bowl.
- Before you add all of the powdered sugar, touch the dough and, if it feels at all sticky, add the rest of the powered sugar.
- Add the food coloring until you reach your desired shade of orange.
- Considering that it is kind of hard to measure exactly one cup of frosting, you might have to eyeball the last quarter cup of powdered sugar that is necessary for this dough.
- It WILL take a lot more powdered sugar than it looks like though. (Just continue to test the stickiness and say “no” to sticky dough.)
- Roll it into one big ball and make sure it is not crumbly or sticky. If by chance you added a little too much powdered sugar, don’t worry. We aren’t perfect. Simply sprinkle a little olive oil onto the dough and BOOM! Problem solved.
- Shape into pumpkins and add the stems.
Check out the full blog post here.
5. Give them candy to play with
An apple turkey craft is a good way to get and keep the children at the kids' Thanksgiving table while all the food is being placed on the grown-ups' table. (Photo: iheartcraftythings.com)
Plates of steaming food are on the table, the turkey is carved and your child is … where? Disappeared from the kids’ table. If you have this adorable apple turkey craft ready to go 15 minutes before all the dishes hit the table, your children will still be in their seats. This is the perfect craft to keep small hands busy so the adults can finish up last-minute preparations in the kitchen before and during the time the food is being set out for the grown-ups table.
Rachel, a blogger at IHeartCraftyThings.com learned to make these gobbly goodies from her mother during Thanksgiving and now she’s sharing them with us.
Supplies
- Apple
- Toothpicks
- Spice drops
- Marshmallow
- Raisins
- Candy corn
- Red fruit snack or red gummy candy, cut in half
Directions
- Poke three spice drops each onto several toothpicks to make the turkey feathers. Insert the ends of the toothpicks along the back of the apple. If your apple starts to teeter one way you have to counter-balance it with more feathers on the other side.
- Poke a large marshmallow into another toothpick and poke it into the front of your apple. Fill in your apple turkey’s face by poking in raisins for eyes, a candy corn beak and half of a red fruit snack for the wattle. I used a whole fruit snack for my wattle and then we decided it was too big so we cut the others in half. You decide what you like best.
- Poke one spice drop each onto the ends of two toothpicks and insert them into the front of the turkey for the turkey legs and feet.
6. Make them work for dessert by decorating cookies
Keep the kids' table busy on Thanksgiving after the meal with cookie decorating. (Photo: Getty Images)
Kids finish first. They always do. While everyone else is grabbing seconds, the kids declare the meal over. If you’re not ready to release them from the table — and have to worry about what they might be up to in other parts of the house — bring out Thanksgiving-themed cookies for them to decorate.
Make the cookie of your choice in seasonal shapes like leaves or turkeys. Then bring out frosting and sprinkles for the kids to decorate.
Enjoy the rest of your meal while the children get a head start on dessert. More pie for you!
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