Crafting and food are the two most essential pieces of holidays for me. Without crafts and decorations, I can’t quite get in the mood. And food, well, I think that goes without saying! Since our family lives in Guatemala, I have to double up the Thanksgiving celebrations and crafting efforts because I’m the only one who celebrates it! So each year I push forward, make a big meal, do Thanksgiving crafts and decorate to spread the festive feeling to our extended family.

I’ve scoured the internet and Pinterest for some new Thanksgiving crafts to add this year. Since Peanut is 3 now, he’s getting pretty handy with crafts and seems to enjoy them quite a bit! The challenge is now to keep my 1-year-old baby girl from destroying everything. She’s getting quite handy with scribbling now, so hopefully the new crayons we bought will keep her busy.

Before we get into crafting, I always spend time talking about what the holiday means and all it involves. While I love Thanksgiving, the history is kind of dark and I want to start out teaching my kids from a young age that it wasn’t always a big happy party between pilgrims and the Native Americans. Secondly, we’ll be looking at pictures of turkeys – (real ones!) before we get creative with the turkey crafts.

Finally we already made some fall leaves this year, and for a kid whose never seen fall leaves, it was a hard concept. We looked at pictures and talked about the idea, but it is a difficult idea for a 3-year-old! Hopefully next year when we’re up north in October he’ll be able to see leaves changing colors. With all of those explanations under our belt, we’ll get to crafting!

Here are my favorite Thanksgiving crafts that we’ll be doing this year. Next week I’ll post an original! Be sure to check out all the links so you can see all the great photos.

1. Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Kid Craft via Resourceful Mama

This adorable craft uses a toilet paper roll. I’m all about recycling and we have tons of toilet paper rolls saved up for making trains, towers and other crafts, so I’m a big fan of this one. This craft also uses tissue paper, glue and of course wiggly eyes.

2. Turkey Made of Every Family Member’s Hand via Mainly Homemade

I love this craft! Each family member cuts out their hand from construction paper. Arrange them in order of largest to smallest and these are the turkey’s feathers. Head over to Mainly Homemade to see the rest and for some great presentation ideas.

3. Mason Jar Fall Luminaries Craft via Where Imagination Grows

These will look lovely on your Thanksgiving table or around your home!

4. Turkey Tracks via Fun A Day

I can’t WAIT for Peanut to do this one. He’s been quite into stamps lately and I’m sure he’ll get a kick out of this. We might use this as a base for displaying other Thanksgiving items. I can totally see this on butcher paper and using it to cover the kids table for Thanksgiving dinner. Or we might use the end product to post on his wall and put the turkey crafts on top. This craft is full of possibilities!

5. Pine Cone Turkeys via a Pumpkin and a Princess

Isn’t this darling? I love the idea of using a pinecone because of all of the great sensory implications. The bumpy texture and the possibility of coupling the craft with a pine cone search is great!

So, hope you have fun crafting with your little ones! Be sure to check back in next week when I post some of our original Thanksgiving related crafts.