20 Easy Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids (Plus Table Activities)

Thanksgiving crafts are a great way to keep kids busy while the cooking happens, and many of them end up on the table as decorations. The 20 ideas below use paper, paper plates, leaves, pinecones and printed coloring pages. They're grouped by age, and the last section covers activities kids can do at the table while they wait for dinner.

What you'll need

Supplies	Used for
Construction paper in brown, orange, red, yellow	Turkeys, leaves, place cards
Paper plates and paper cups	Turkeys, wreaths
Glue sticks, child-safe scissors, tape	Most crafts
Crayons, markers, washable paint	Coloring and decorating
Leaves, pinecones, acorns (collected outside)	Nature crafts
Googly eyes, pipe cleaners, feathers	Faces and details (supervise small parts)

Toddlers (ages 2–3)

1. Handprint turkey. Trace your child's hand on brown paper. The thumb becomes the head; color the fingers as feathers.

2. Paper plate turkey. Color a paper plate brown and glue paper feathers (or real craft feathers) around the edge.

3. Leaf rubbing. Put a leaf under thin paper and rub a crayon over it sideways. Use fall colors.

4. Sticker gratitude jar. Draw a jar and let them fill it with stickers of things they like.

5. Fingerprint corn. Paint a yellow corn shape with fingerprints and add green paper husks.

Preschool and kindergarten (ages 4–6)

6. Toilet paper roll turkey. Wrap a roll in brown paper and glue a fan of paper feathers on the back.

7. Gratitude tree. Draw or cut a bare tree from brown paper. Each child writes or draws something they're thankful for on a paper leaf and sticks it on.

8. Pinecone turkey. Glue paper feathers to the wide end of a pinecone and a small paper head to the other.

9. Paper plate wreath. Cut the middle out of a paper plate and glue on paper or real leaves.

10. Thankful hands. Trace both hands, cut them out, and write one thing they're grateful for on each finger.

11. Coloring page placemats. Print a fall coloring page for each guest, let kids color them, and cover with clear contact paper. You can make a custom one with the AI coloring page generator.

Older kids (ages 7–10)

12. Place cards. Fold small pieces of card, write each guest's name in bubble letters, and decorate with leaves. A name coloring page makes it quicker.

13. Paper strip turkey. Loop strips of paper into a fan of feathers and glue them behind a paper circle body.

14. Gratitude journal. Staple a few sheets of paper into a booklet and write one thank-you each day of November.

15. Fall leaf mandala. Arrange leaves, seeds and petals in a circle pattern on the table, then photograph it, or color a printed mandala coloring page in fall colors.

16. Bead corn. String yellow, red, orange and brown pony beads onto pipe cleaners to look like multicolored flint corn.

17. Turkey bookmark. Fold a corner bookmark from paper and add a beak and feathers.

Table activities while dinner cooks

18. Thanksgiving I-spy. Make a list of things to find around the room or on the table: something orange, something round, something you're grateful for.

19. Pass-the-story. One person starts a story with "Once upon a Thanksgiving…", and each person adds a sentence.

20. Gratitude coloring. Hand out coloring pages and ask each child to write one thing they're thankful for in the corner before coloring.

Tips

Prepare pre-cut shapes for younger children so they can focus on gluing and decorating.
Keep crafts that use food (like dried corn or beans) away from toddlers.
Use crafts as table decorations; kids love seeing their work used.
Save the gratitude leaves and hands for next year.

More seasonal ideas

If you're planning ahead, our list of Christmas activities for kids is ready for December, and our guide to the benefits of coloring explains why quiet crafts like these help kids settle on busy days.