Thanksgiving Ideas for the Kids' Table

Growing up, I must admit that Thanksgiving wasn't one of my favorite holidays.  Don't get me wrong...I love turkey, pie and a great home cooked meal, but it felt like there was nothing more than the eating.  Now as an adult, my own family usually gets together with my husband's side of the family, where my kids play with their cousins, the guys watch a football game or two and the girls sit in the living room looking through ads in the paper to see which stores we will visit in the middle of the night, all for the sake of a good deal...yeah I'm one of those crazy people!  Playing games and eating comes with the holiday too.  Well if your family has kids or kids coming to dinner, here are a few ideas you can use to keep them entertained at the "kids table".
Have the kids make these darling little turkeys using Rice Krispies.

While sitting at the table, waiting for the food, have the kids color some Thanksgiving pictures using this FREE package of assembled crayons.

and FREE coloring page, which could double as a placemat.

I am a sucker for Peanut Butter, so making these Nutter Butter turkeys would be a BIG hit at my house. 

Ingredients needed:
Nutter Butter Cookies
M&M's (minis)
White Cookie Frosting
Red, Yellow and Orange Jelly Beans
Candy Corn
(Full Sized) Reese's PB Cups
(Nabisco) Chocolate Wafer Cookies

How about these simple Pilgrim hat cookies from Woman's Day?  3 ingredients!  (Nabisco) Chocolate Wafer Cookies, 1 tube orange frosting with piping tip, and small Reese's PB cups.

I love this idea from Fiskars.  Fill a pie tin with some items to munch on so that when dinner isn't ready on time, the kids will have some food to snack on.  Fill the tin with items such as popcorn, M&M's, Bugles chips, nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, etc.  Make sure to cut a shape in the lid to resemble the top of a pie.

Also, from Fiskars, turn a paper cup upside down and decorate it like a Pilgrim's hat to hold the crayons.  If the table is covered with some white butcher paper, the kids can enjoy the wait time while coloring!

Lastly, I thought I should add some nutrition to the mix.  Maybe serving vegetables like this would make the kids want some?!?

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!  Check back next week as I start the Christmas ideas coming...

Thanksgiving Gift Ideas

Looking for a quick gift for a friend, neighbor, teacher, or something to bring to dinner?  Here are a few suggestions for you this Thanksgiving.
First of all, don't you think kids would be excited to get a jar of Turkey Toes!?!  Put some candy corn in a jar and add a cute label and you are all set!

This idea from Mommy By Day, Crafter By Night, is not only super cute and easy, but also includes a FREE tag.  Head to the dollar store to pick up a container, add some fall colored M&M's (or Reece's Pieces), slap on a tag and you're ready to go!

Another easy gift idea, would be to print out one of these great printables (or another one you like).  Look for a cute 8x10 picture frame at the dollar store (or else where) and add your printable to the frame.  All in all, the gift could cost you a little over $1.  Here are a few printables I have found a love:



Source:  Balancing Home

Source:  Capital B

Source:  Craftily Ever After 

Gratitude Rolls

THIS may just be one of the coolest Thanksgiving traditions I have seen...GRATITUDE ROLLS.

As guests arrive, give them each a small slip of paper and have them write one thing they are grateful for.  Place each slip of paper on a wedge of crescent roll dough and wrap up the paper inside.  Follow the directions for the rolls and bake as usual.  At dinner, as each guest takes a roll, they read what the slips of paper say.  As suggested by Balancing Beauty & Bedlam, a fun twist to this activity is to then guess who wrote what.  What a fun way to bring the family closer and keep in mind all our blessings!

{FREE} November Calendar Cards

Although Novemeber is half way through, maybe you can print out these calendar cards to use for next year.  These are a FREE download from Doodle Bugs Teaching, and would work perfectly for sequencing numbers as a center or to use as part of a calendar. 

Thanksgiving Acorns

Since Thanksgiving is always such a crazy day in the kitchen, why not start the day off with a simple breakfast for the kids...like these cute acorn donuts.  Okay I know what you're thinking...more calories on Thanksgiving, but aren't they darling!?! 

Source:  Gracious Rain

These would also be a fun activity for the kids to make while waiting for dinner or during a class party/feast!

Thanksgiving Crafts & Centerpieces

Studio 5 had a guest, Kristine McKay, on the show the other day who featured several great Thanksgiving ideas.
The ideas are mainly craft and centerpiece ideas. I love the idea of using the same table cloth every year and having your guests sign their names each year. After each year, embroider over the signatures to preserve the names and watch the family and guest names grow over the years.

The other idea I really like was the crayon turkey the kids can make and use at the kids' table. Such fun and easy ideas for entertaining! Check out more of Kristine's ideas and FREE downloads on her site.

Cornucopia Treats

Tonight my kids and I made cornucopia treats for dessert. I had bought sugar cones back in October thinking that I would make witch hat treats with them, but life got hectic and that never happened. Since I had the cones on hand, we made cornucopias instead. I tried heating a cone in the microwave first, thinking that maybe I could soften and bend the cone. Unfortunately it didn't work the way I had hoped so we had to leave the cones as they were. We melted some chocolate chips over the stove and then rolled the cones in the melted chocolate. Then we put some sprinkles on the chocolate and set them in the fridge to set up quicker. Once the chocolate was set, we filled each cone with some Runts candy. My kids all thought it was a fun idea and they didn't taste too bad either. Really though...can you go wrong with chocolate ANYTHING?!?

Thanksgiving Ideas

Crafts and Deals left a comment so I decided to check out her site. I love blog hopping and seeing all of the creative people and ideas out there! She has some really fun and great Thanksgiving ideas (along with other non-Thanksgiving ideas!). I love the Thanksgiving memory game,

Paper Bag Turkey,

and Fall Fingerprint Tree.

I know I will be trying out some of these ideas with my kids. Thanks for sharing!!

Coloring Pages for Thanksgiving

Need a way to entertain kids at the table this year while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner to be served? Here are some links to free, printable coloring pages and activities...

KABOOSE

FAMILY FUN

TONS of pages to chose from HERE

Hope this helps keep the little ones busy and happy!

Thanks and Giving Tree

Chocolate on My Cranium has this fun idea for making two trees during the month of December. One tree to list items we are thankful for and the other tree for acts of service (giving) that we can perform. What a great idea. Hop over to her site to download the templates for the trees and leaves.

Pine Cone Turkeys

Live near pine trees? Looks easy enough. Check out how to make these darling turkeys using pine cones HERE.

Turkey Treats

How funny is this? Last year for Thanksgiving, I had the kids in the family make these yummy turkey treats. I had gotten the idea from a friend. As I was looking at Family Fun today, I came across a link with the directions on how to make these. My turkeys are a little different, but the idea is the same. The kids all had a fun time making these turkeys! The hardest part was not eating all the ingredients before the turkeys were made!!


**If you like the way my turkeys turned out, here's what I used:

*Oreo Cookies (1/turkey, unless you want them to stand upright. In that case use 1 1/2-2 cookies)
*Candy Corn (6/turkey: stick 5 between the Oreo cookies, into the white frosting of the cookie. Bite down a candy corn to make a tip for the beak)
*Miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (For the body. Attach with frosting.)
*Whoppers (For the head. Attach with frosting.)
*Chocolate Frosting (Use as the "glue")

Thanksgiving Treats

Here are some fun food ideas found over at Family Fun. Check them out!
The Fruit Gobbler

Tepee Treats

Turkey Cupcakes

Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats