Five entertaining Thanksgiving activities for Preschoolers

When you think of Thanksgiving activities, it’s very common to create something with a turkey. But, sticking solely to turkey-based crafts places a limit on plenty of other fun and educational activities that you can surely associate with the holiday. These emotion acorns are a great way to educate the kids about feelings and emotions. All you have to do is gather a few from your tree and mark them with different emotions. If you have trouble finding acorns outside your home, it’s wise to contact the parents through Child Journal and kindly ask if they could gather a few from their own trees to make the activity possible. The kids will enjoy calling out each emotion as you spread them across the table for them to observe. You’ll also learn that you can use the acorns for other purposes as well. As the kids handle them, you can encourage them to count and use them as counters to foster fine motor development.

Children love the outdoors, so it’s always a good idea to allow them to do what they enjoy doing the most. A mini pumpkin hunt race could be essential because it encourages the children to run outside and use the muscles necessary to establish gross motor development. To begin, give the children specific instructions so they can understand what they’re required to do. Next, explain that the child who gets the most pumpkins will be the winner. Adding some competitiveness to the race will make the activity extra exciting, and the children will be more engaged. Then, write each child’s name on separate pieces of paper and place them on the ground for children to collect their findings. Doing this will also encourage them to put their thinking caps on to read their name and ensure they’re collecting them on the right spot.

Snack time is an excellent opportunity to create a Thanksgiving craft. These turkey Pretzel sticks are so easy and fun to make. All you’ll need are pretzel sticks, Nutella, sprinkles, and candy corn. To begin, cover about an inch of the pretzel sticks with Nutella. Have this ready ahead of time and exclude the children from this process to keep the activity painless for you and easy for them. Then, place them on paper plates. You will determine how many you want to give each child based on your snack portions. Next, give each child enough sprinkles and candy corn to create the pretzel turkey. The children do not have to try and stick the candy corn to the turkey. Simply encourage them to form the candy corn in a way as to emulate a turkey’s feathered tail. Once they’ve compiled their turkeys, ensure that you take photographs and share them with their parents through Child Journal to give the parents a little insight into their child’s day and then let the kids eat them and enjoy.

Make the children’s thanksgiving holiday a little sweet with these really cool candy corn garlands. All you need is paper plates, scissors, orange, yellow, and white paint, and some yarn. Have the kids paint the center with white, middle with orange, and edges with yellow. To keep it simple and non-messy, pour one color first and let the kids paint the section. Then, move onto the second color and repeat. You’ll follow the same step for the third color, all to make a perfectly painted acorn. The kids will truly enjoy making this activity, and you can use these garlands as decorations around the classroom. The children will love seeing their work of art hung around their class.