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20 Fun Activities for Kids on Thanksgiving Day

November 23, 2022

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It might be difficult to keep the children occupied as you wait for the celebrations to start on Thanksgiving, which is always a terrific day for family time. Consider one of these kid-friendly activities that promote creativity, kindness, and the building of wonderful family memories.

Turkey Tournament

Make your Thanksgiving family game night a Turkey Tournament! Choose a board game that each member of the family enjoys and take turns playing it. After the night is through, you can keep track of which games are won and identify the tournament winner.

A Scavenger Hunt

Send the children outside to look for autumnal cues like red leaves, pine cones, caterpillars, and acorns if the skies are clear. Alternatively, look indoors for items like paper turkeys, miniature pumpkins, and fall-themed wreaths if the weather is bad. Make a checklist for the scavenger hunt, and see who can find them completely first. Good prizes incorporate chocolate turkey wrapped in foil, a gift card, or a $5 cash.

Let Kids Showcase Their Talents

Bring out the play clothes, and ask the children to plan a talent presentation. They can do whatever they can conceive of. Singing, dancing, cracking jokes, performing magic tricks, etc. They'll continue to practice and plan, and after the feast, you'll have entertainment. 

Turkey Tag

The game Turkey Tag will get the kids to move before or after the big meal. While the others roam the area, one person is It. Get into a seated position and rapidly state your preferred Thanksgiving dish to avoid being tagged. If you aren't able to name and drop something quickly enough, you'll get tagged and be the tagger. 

Have a Discussion

It's not always simple to find topics that children can agree on to talk about at the dinner table. However, if Thanksgiving is among the infrequent occasions the family gathers, it is the ideal time for a light-hearted discussion.

Photo Booth

Install a photo booth if you have sufficient space. While posing for the camera, kids will love experimenting with different Thanksgiving and fall props. The selfie camera on your iPad can be used with the Photo Booth App, or you can use one of the many apps available that are specifically made for this function.

Time Capsule

The celebration of Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity for contemplation and considering the important aspects of our lives. Prepare a shoebox or other small container with the children, and then have each member of the family add something special to it. Such as a listing of their favorite books or a sketch of their preferred pastime. Until Thanksgiving, the following year, close the box and store it. This is a fantastic approach to engage the entire family over the holiday season and the following year!

Go Plant

Gearing up for a celebration is a great chance to talk about the sources and growth of food. If it's warm enough outside, let the children plant a seed that would eventually become something tasty, like snow peas. You also can start indoor herbs if you lack outside space or if it's too cold outside.

Volunteer and Help

Doing something nice and helpful for others is the best manner to arouse a sense of gratitude, thankfulness, and comforting fuzzies. With that, think about organizing a field trip for your kids to a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving so they can assist in serving meals to those in need. This will truly help them put this vacation into perspective.

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Bake a Pie

Kids enjoy doing basic baking tasks. And preparing a pumpkin pie is one you can assist them with at home. Even the smallest elementary-age children can do tasks like cracking eggs, pouring and stirring batter and garnishing with whipped cream. 

Go for a walk

The ideal approach to expend some of that child energy is to go outside. Bring your colored cards or painted pebbles with you to share with your neighbors. You might even turn it into a game by asking the kids to list ten things they are grateful for while out walking, such as trees that offer shade.

Colors and Puzzles

Coloring pages, crossword puzzles, and photo hunts are all great ways to pass the time. These make a fantastic option for lengthy vehicle trips to see relatives. Keeping stick well with the Thanksgiving concept, search for free Thanksgiving printables online.

Sensory Bin

Young children can use sensory bins as excellent exercises to practice fine motor skills. And discover various colors, textures, and forms in their unique ways. Put seasonal decorations in a plastic tub, such as dried maize, pinecones, fake fall leaves, or whatever else comes to mind.

Decorate the Thanksgiving Table

Making something crafty is a great way of keeping kids occupied. On Pinterest, you can find tons of Thanksgiving crafts for kids, including popsicle stick turkeys for the dinner table and handprint trees. Buy a cotton tablecloth and some fabric markers for a quick activity the whole family can participate in, and then let them loose drawing and designing all over the cloth. The tablecloth can then be saved for the next Thanksgiving, becoming a delightful family heirloom that you can utilize to start a new Thanksgiving practice.

Play the Game of Gratitude

Create a game out of sharing what you're grateful for just to make it slightly more fun. Get everyone to jot one item they are thankful for on a piece of paper and place it into a cap or canister before all sit down to dine. Take turns pulling the papers out over Thanksgiving dinner, having read them aloud, and then guess who penned them.

Start a Food Drive

For older children who may have outgrown crafts and activities, this is a great option. Let them organize a food drive for the neighborhood. To solicit gifts from neighbors, they can create flyers to distribute. They can hand out bags along with their flyers, then simply schedule a time to return and collect stuff from the doorstep of their neighbors.

Theater of Readers

Visit the library beforehand to find some entertaining Thanksgiving books or family-friendly tales about the holiday's past. Have your older children do reader's theater by reading the books out loud and enacting the plot. Add costumes and extras to make it even more entertaining while they learn some fascinating information!

Collage

Give your kids safety scissors, drawing supplies, and various colored construction paper. By doodling and cutting out various dishes that they would have for their ideal Thanksgiving meal or even the meal that they would regularly eat with their families. Ask them to create a collage of their dinner table. The next step is to have each child discuss what is on their table, what they enjoy, and why they enjoy it. Children get a real opportunity to consider the blessings in their existence and cultivate feelings of appreciation thanks to this activity.

Trivia Cards

Play a trivia game this Thanksgiving to get kids of every age amused. Look up entertaining Thanksgiving and autumn-related facts before the big day and create trivia cards with them. So that people can pass the time and learn something new while they wait for dinner, place the deck of cards on the table.

Tree of Gratitude

It's never a bad idea to start practicing thankfulness around Thanksgiving. Making a gratitude tree is one of our most favored Thanksgiving traditions. Kids of all ages will enjoy participating in this insightful activity. A tree trunk should be drawn on a huge piece of paper. Construct leaves in the hues of autumn. To create a tree of thanks, ask everyone who attends your Thanksgiving meal to write down (or draw, for young ones) one thing they are grateful for, then attach the leaf to the trunk.

Conclusion

With the help of these Thanksgiving games and activities, you can pass time before or after the Thanksgiving feast, while creating everlasting family memories. Don't forget to take some photos!

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