If your house is anything like mine on Thanksgiving, it’s loud, chaotic, and a flurry of activity. It behooves everyone to make a plan for keeping your child busy with kids activities for Thanksgiving.
Here in Autismland, a plan can mean the difference between amazing family memories and a day that ends in meltdowns. Never fear, a plan is not to hard to come up with and you will be glad you did.
How Do You Make Thanksgiving FUN?
It’s not as hard as you may imagine. It’s always better to have too many activities than not enough so boredom doesn’t set in. Bored kids become “kids in the way” or “kids who get out of sorts”.
I also highly recommend assigning someone to be there with the kids. We rotate through the adults, unless we luck out and a teenager is present. I pay the teenager to help, by going through the activities. I do the same thing with Christmas get-togethers.
Kids activities for Thanksgiving don’t need to be pricey or time-consuming. Check out these fun ideas for more kids activities for Thanksgiving.
- Handprint turkey is a fun memento of the day
- Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade
- Thanksgiving placemat with fun activities (get yours free below)
- Turkey hot potato with a stuffed turkey
- Make cards for shut-ins
- Make a Lego Mayflower
- Learn about the 1st Thanksgiving using books and/or videos (highly recommend A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving)
- Put together a play about the 1st Thanksgiving and let the kids present it before dinner
- Have a board game tournament
- Make slime, playdough, or cloud dough shapes that go along with kids activities for Thanksgiving
- Thanksgiving themed sensory bins
- Start or work on a Grateful Journal
- Make a Thankful Tree
- Scavenger hunt
- Cover the kids table with butcher paper and let the kids draw, color, play Hangman
- Do a Holiday Build Challenge
As you can see, finding kids activities for Thanksgiving Day isn’t hard. The activities are less important than the plan to do them. The plan involves making sure you have everything needed with clear directions before the big day.
Tell me what is your favorite Thanksgiving Day activity? Leave a comment below!
To help you choose the best kids activities for Thanksgiving, Penny is offering her Thanksgiving activity mats for free right now. All you need to do is leave your name and email to grab your copy.
To help you out, I’ve created a simple 30 Day Gratitude Challenge Printable. Each person in your family should have their own printable. At dinner time or bedtime, let your kids write what they are thankful for that day. There is enough space on the printable to let your kids write what they are thankful for that day.
Younger kids can use the printable with prompts for each day. Even preschoolers can take on the challenge with the thank you prompts on the printable. Actually, I’m sending a copy to my daughter who has a 3-year old. The prompts are a simple way to stay focused on thankfulness all of November.
For, older kids and parents, I suggest writing at least 3 things you are thankful for each day. Once you sign up, you’ll receive an email with specific ideas for older kids.
Be sure to check back here (or sign up for our email updatesat the top of this post) throughout November for lots of great ideas to help you teach gratitude to your kids. For now, take the 30 Day Gratitude Challenge and get your free printables below.
Penny blogs over at Our Crazy Adventures In Autismland. Based on her own personal experiences with autism, she educates autism families on how to navigate their world from diagnosis to adulthood. She offers real life advice and ideas through her blog by providing homeschool printables, at home therapy techniques, ebooks and DIY posts.
You can also follow her adventures on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or in her group, Life In Autismland.
