Coolest Ideas for Thanksgiving Crafts
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Easy Thanksgiving crafts are perfect for getting the kids' (and your) creative fluids bubbling (and gobbling.) You'll find lots of cool craft ideas below.
Egg Carton Totem Pole: Cut egg cartons into four rows of three cups. Glue two sections together, back to back, to form a totem pole. Decorate with different paints, colored macaroni, sequins, glitter, beads, beans, foam shapes, and all sorts of other craft items.
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Indian Dream Catchers: Hand out paper plates and have your guests cut out the center of their paper plates and punch holes all around the inside perimeter. Then have them paint both sides of the plate. After the paint dries, let them weave yarn in and out of the holes until a web is created. Afterwards, punch three holes at the bottom of the plate and place a piece of yarn through each hole, taping the ends together with masking tape. Using the taped end let your guests thread small beads onto the yarn and then slide a feather underneath the beads. This creates a tight fit so the beads won't fall off. To hang them up, punch a hole at the top and create a loop with yarn.
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Native American Headbands: Have your guests cut paper strips to make a headband or have these pre-made. Provide them with feathers, glitter, sequins or other materials to decorate the headband and then staple or tape the headband together measuring each person’s head.
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Hanging Turkeys: Take a wire clothes hanger and bend into an oval with the hook at the top. Stretch a leg of tan panty hose over the hanger and tie at the top. Have your guests cut out hand prints and glue on as six feathers, three on each side, two eyes, pupils, triangle orange nose, red gobbler, and two orange feet. Hang from the ceiling.
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Harvest Necklace: Measure the length of a string or fishing line that you need to fit the necklace over the head (and don't forget to leave enough for tying off). Thread a large needle and string popcorn and other items alternately (such as raisins, dried cranberries, nuts, pieces of orange peel, dried apple or apricot, etc.). After your guests wear their necklaces, you can hang them onto a tree or shrub for the local wildlife.
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Thanksgiving Tablecloth: Wash and iron a plain white tablecloth. Place the cloth on a clean wide space and lay down protective newspaper. You can use paper plates for the paints. Try and choose fall colors and Thanksgiving colors such as gold, brown, green, orange, red etc. For printing items use potatoes and sponges cut into desired shapes, thanksgiving cookie cutters, feathers, corncob, leaves, etc.
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Thanksgiving Placemats: There are many placemat variations you can come up with for Thanksgiving. For instance, have your guests collect leaves, feathers, berries, etc. and glue them onto letter-sized construction paper or thin cardboard. Or, cut out Thanksgiving pictures from magazines and newspaper advertisements and glue them, or use the guest’s handprints, and so forth. Then, cover each placemat with clear Con-Tact paper laminating it.
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Corn Painting: Take thoroughly cleaned and dried corncobs and dip them into different fall colored paints. Let the children roll the corncobs over white paper to make a very special print. This can also be used as a placemat.
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Feather Painting: Provide each child with a feather, paint and paper and let them paint pictures using the feather as a paintbrush.
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Festive Napkin Rings: These will add glorious fall colors to your table. Have the kids cut toilet paper tubes into 1 1/2" wide rings and paint designs in festive fall colors on the "rings". Add construction paper or real feathers. You can also have the children paint on the tubes colored glue (red, yellow, orange, brown) and then roll the tubes into a mixture of different types and colors of beans (corn, black, green pea, etc.)
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Pilgrim Place Cards: Hand out clothespins and have the kids use fine tip colored markers to draw faces on the "head" of each clothespin. Have them color the rest of the clothespin black. Just below the head, wrap a black pipe cleaner around the neck to create the arms. Wrap another pipe cleaner around the bottom part for the feet. Have the "pilgrim" stand up inside a bottle cap. Cut out a black construction paper hat and glue it on complete with yellow buckle. Also have them cut out and glue on a white paper vest. Cut nametags from white or yellow construction paper, and attach to the pilgrim's pipe cleaner arms. It'll look really special with the nametag held above the pilgrim's head.
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Paper Plate Hand Turkeys: You'll need one paper plate for each turkey. Have the kids place their hand in the center of the paper plate with fingers spread out so they are separated. Trace the hand with a pencil and cut out. The thumb is the head of the turkey and the fingers are its feathers. Let the kids use markers, crayons or colored pencils to color their turkey. Also, use leaves or acorns on the fingers for feathers and paste goofy eyes on the turkey.
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Native American Medallions: Common pieces of jewelry for the Wampanoag Indian include medallions and pendants, which bore symbols that held special meanings to whomever wore them. Many times they would make these medallions and give them as presents. For this craft, provide your guests with colored felt, colored yarn, a hole punch, large beads (preferable 1/2 inch in size), and different colored permanent markers. Have them cut out two circles from the felt for the medallion (they should each be around 4-5 inches in diameter, you can use an oatmeal or coffee can lid to trace around). Use the hole punch to punch out holes 3/4 around the circumference of both circles (best if this is done while both circles are on top of each other, the holes of each circle need to coincide with each other). Then with yarn have them weave in through the holes attaching both circles together. They will be left with a medallion that isn’t sowed all around; there will be a pocket so that small things could be put into it. For the necklace itself that will be connected to the medallion, braid yarn together (best if braided with three different colored pieces of yarn). Beads can be added into the braid. Then thread each end of the braided necklace through the top holes of the medallion (so that the pocket side is up). Ask your guest to come up with a design that has a special meaning to it and draw it on to the front of each of their medallions. You can also tell each of your guests that these medallions should be made for someone special, and then they could slip little Thank You notes into the pocket of the medallion.
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Native American Vest: For this activity you will need big brown paper bags (like the ones you may get at your local supermarkets), scissors, and decorating materials. Take each brown paper bag, cut a small circle from the bottom of the paper bag (for the neck) and two more small holes on the sides as the armholes. Then choose a front of the vest and cut from bottom to top of the neck hole a slit. Provide with all kinds of decorating materials: markers, paints, glitter, construction paper, cut-out arrows, suns, native American designs, etc, and have them glue these on to their vests.
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Turkey Apples: For this you will need as many apples as you have kids, toothpicks, cheerios, fruit-loops, raisins, mini colored marshmallows and maraschino cherries. Give each kid an apple and show them how to place a toothpick going in the front (staying near the top) for the neck of the turkey. Have them place a maraschino cherry on the top of the toothpick for the head. Then have them place toothpicks in the back of the apple for the tail feathers. They then decorate the toothpick with cheerios, fruit-loops, raisins and at the end of each “feather”, have them place a mini marshmallow to keep them all in place (you can also use mini pumpkins instead of apples).
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Cornucopia: You will need small brown paper bags, colored construction paper, and scissors. Take each brown paper bag and fold the open edges outward (about an inch). Then take the bottom part and try crushing it into a small soft point, bending it to one side like a cornucopia. Let the children cut out different fruits and vegetables out of colored construction paper and attach each fruit to yarn. They can then attach each piece of yarn to the inside of the cornucopia and suspend lots of fruits, eventually seeming as if they are overflowing. You can also blow up mini balloons in colors that coincide with different fruits and vegetables (red and green for apples, yellow, green and brown for pears, yellow for squash, etc.); which they can put into their cornucopia.
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