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These 5 simple Thanksgiving Day activities are simple and fun for the kids to do while you cook the feast!

Try these Thanksgiving Day activities to keep everyone happy during the day

This year we have my sister in law and her family coming to our house for Thanksgiving. She has five kids under the age of 11, plus my three kids, so we’ll have a house full of kiddos! I’ve been coming up with Thanksgiving Day activities the kids can do to keep them happy and entertained while I cook dinner, and I wanted to share what I came up with!

5 Thanksgiving Day activities for kids

1. Set up your own Turkey Trot

A Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving Day race, and is a tradition for many people around the country. Two years ago I decided I wanted to do one, but the fee for the race for 5 people was expensive. So instead, I set up our own! I made our own bibs with “White Family Turkey Trot 5K” printed on them, and then numbers corresponding to our ages – just for fun.

I mapped out our route through our neighborhood, and then used black and white streamers on our front porch as the finish line. We burst through at the end, and it was just so darn fun. Seriously, try it! It’s free and a fun way to start your Thanksgiving Day as a family.

(This year we have Philip’s sister and her five kids with us, so I think we’ll bring along scooters and bikes and have the cousins trade off riding and running so no one gets burned out).

2. Nature walk + Leaf Rubbing

Leaf rubbing is the perfect Thanksgiving day activity! Take a stroll down your street or through your neighborhood while the turkey is cooking and gather a few different kinds of leaves.

To leaf rub, you just put the leaf underneath a plain piece of printer paper and rub on top of the paper with the side of a crayon!

3. Make ornaments

This activity will keep little hands busy for a long time on Thanksgiving. These MARBLED ORNAMENTS are gorgeous, unique, and so easy to make. I grabbed a pack of clear plastic ornaments from Michaels so we don’t have to worry about broken glass.

Michaels also has a ton of fun painting crafts, and I picked up these little Nutcracker soldiers for the kids to paint as well.

4. Make a grateful tree

Have you ever made a Gratitude Tree? These are fun and super simple to make. Using construction paper and scissors, cut out pieces of brown paper to create a trunk for the tree. You’ll need to tape them together to make it big. Tape it to your wall and add branches from brown construction paper.

Then cut out leaves from yellow, red, green, and orange construction paper. Have the kids write things that they’re grateful for and tape them up on the branches!

5. Coloring activities

Coloring keeps my kids entertained for hours. We printed out an engineer size (24×36″) print of the Rad Reader Advent calendar and also a bunch of copies of our Rad Mail coloring pages for November.

They’re both super inexpensive, but you could also google Thanksgiving coloring pages or do an Art for Kids Hub YouTube video!

5 Thanksgiving Day Activities For Kids

mom and boys with pumpkins on their heads

These 5 simple Thanksgiving Day activities are simple and fun for the kids to do while you cook the feast!

 

Try these Thanksgiving Day activities to keep everyone happy during the day

I can’t believe Thanksgiving is this week! We’re spending it at a little rental house in southern Texas this year, just with our immediate family, so we’re not cooking all day or have a house full of family. But if you are cooking all day, or have family you’re spending time with, here are some simple Thanksgiving Day activities to keep everyone happy while you prepare the feast!

 

5 Thanksgiving Day activities for kids:

annual White Family turkey trot

1. Set up your own Turkey Trot

A Turkey Trot is a Thanksgiving Day race, and is a tradition for many people around the country. Three years ago I decided I wanted to do one, but the fee for the race for 5 people was expensive. So instead, I set up our own! I made our own bibs with “White Family Turkey Trot 5K” printed on them, and then numbers corresponding to our ages – just for fun.

You can see them here (click File > Save a copy to make your own)!

I mapped out our route through our neighborhood, and then used black and white streamers on our front porch as the finish line. We burst through at the end, and it was just so darn fun. Seriously, try it! It’s free and a fun way to start your Thanksgiving Day as a family.

(Last year my sister in law and her family visited us for Thanksgiving, and they joined us on our annual Turkey Trot. We brought along scooters, bikes, and our golf cart so that even the little kids could keep up and have fun. It was a blast!)

 

leaf rubbing image with crayons

image via 100 directions

2. Nature walk + Leaf Rubbing

Leaf rubbing is the perfect Thanksgiving day activity! Take a stroll down your street or through your neighborhood while the turkey is cooking and gather a few different kinds of leaves.

To leaf rub, you just put the leaf underneath a plain piece of printer paper and rub on top of the paper with the side of a crayon!

painting ornaments thanksgiving day activity

3. Make ornaments

This activity will keep little hands busy for a long time on Thanksgiving. These MARBLED ORNAMENTS are gorgeous, unique, and so easy to make. I grabbed a pack of clear plastic ornaments from Michaels so we don’t have to worry about broken glass.

Michaels also has a ton of fun painting crafts, and I picked up these little Nutcracker soldiers last year for the kids to paint as well.

paper thankful tree in a frame

image via Landee See Landee Do

4. Make a thankful tree

Have you ever made a Thankful Tree? These are fun and super simple to make. Using construction paper and scissors, cut out pieces of brown paper to create a trunk for the tree. You can tape pieces together to make it big, or make it small. Tape it to your wall and add branches from brown construction paper.

Then cut out leaves from yellow, red, green, and orange construction paper. Have the kids write things that they’re grateful for and tape them up on the branches!

Landee See Landee Do has a free printable you can use right here!

painting ornaments thanksgiving day activity

5. Coloring activities

Coloring keeps my kids entertained for hours. We printed out an engineer size (24×36″) print of the Rad Reader Advent calendar and also a bunch of copies of our Rad Mail coloring pages for November.

They’re both super inexpensive, but you could also google Thanksgiving coloring pages or do an Art for Kids Hub YouTube video!

 

 

BONUS #6: Toby the Turkey

Also check out this cute Toby the Turkey packet that has fun activities and games about gratitude!

 

I hope these are helpful as we head into Thanksgiving this week!

 

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boys and mom with pumpkins on a fence

5 Comments

  1. Kathryne Aufderhar says:

    People get themselves ready for any event by visiting the markets and buying the dress or accessories of their choice. Similarly, kids have their own activities to do on thanksgiving event. I am glad to read here 5 entertaining activities for kids that made their thanksgiving event better. I am going to visit essayyoda.com website to learn about best writing help to get and have best free time on this thanksgiving.

  2. heather Nooe says:

    Some of the links aren’t working – the headband and green sweater. these looks are great. i purchased your white stripe dress earlier this year and think i will get another during this sale. Thank you for always offering great looks.

  3. Christine says:

    That turkey trot idea is genius! We are going to do this – thanks for the fun idea! 🙂

  4. Kathy says:

    we take BRANCHES from the yard and then hand traced leaves with our thankful items: People, places and things on it through November! so fun!

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