Step 2: When the paint is dry have your child draw symbols of fall or thanksgiving on the coloured paper using crayons or markers. Here are some ideas: coloured leaves, pilgrim’s hat, pumpkins, pie, a turkey, a cornucopia, wheat…
Step 3: Cut each paper towel roll into 5 or 6 rings (as wide as you desire).
Step 4: Help your child cut out each picture and then glue one picture per cut out paper ring.
Step 5: Roll each napkin (we tilted the napkin into a diamond and rolled from one point inward) and then stuff into the paper ring.
Step 6: To make each napkin ring a place card write the name of each guest on the ring or picture.

Thanksgiving

NAPKIN RING/PLACE CARDS:

Materials: Empty paper towel roll (or toilet paper rolls), paint and brushes (plus art smock or old clothes to wear while painting and something to cover the table), waxed paper, various colours of craft paper, markers and/or crayons, child safe scissors, glue stick, thanksgiving napkins.

Step 1:Paint the paper towel rolls orange (or any other autumnal colour) and let them dry on the waxed paper. (Use as many rolls as you need depending on how many people will require napkins. You can make 5 or 6 napkin rings per roll).

THANKSGIVING STICKERS or STAMPS:

Materials: Coloured paper (try Autumn colours like black, orange or green), assorted Thanksgiving stickers, (Optional) crayons or markers OR an ink pad and some thanksgiving stamps.

Step 1:Give your child the stickers and the paper and have him/her either make a collage or a Thanksgiving scene using them. Or use an ink pad and stamps.
Step 2:See if you child wants to embellish the picture using markers or crayons by drawing more details to the picture.
Step 3:Display or glue in your Family Theme Day Scrapbook. You could even use it as a Thanksgiving card or Thank You for a relative or friend who lives far away. Grandparents would love it!

Thankful Art:

Materials: Canvas (from dollar stores), acrylic paint in hues of blue, brown, and orange, paint brushes, white glue mixed with equal parts water (or modge podge glue), black permanent markers, scrapbook paper or bits of wrapping paper with designs, coloured construction paper, child safe scissors, craft knife (optional and for adult use only), cutting board (optional), gold or yellow paint.

Day 1: Have your child paint the entire canvas blue using a few different shades of blue for a nice background. Let it dry. Meanwhile cut out the letters THANKFUL from bright construction paper. I let my kids choose their font on the computer and then enlarged it, printed it and laid it on the construction paper on top of a cutting board to cut out using an exacto or craft knife. If you have one of those fantastic scrapbook machines that cut out shapes and letters from paper use that…it would be much easier and faster.

Day 2: Have your child paint a a tree trunk and branch on the canvas. We choose to have ours off to the side but it could be centered if that's what your child wants. Make sure there is room for the word THNAKFUL. Using streaks of orange in the brown makes for a nice tree trunk.

Day 3: Have your child choose the paper to use as the leaves. We kept to Autumn colours for ours. Your child can cut them out or you can cut out the leaf shapes as well. Now glue the word THANKFUL to the canvas as well as the leaves. I found that using a mixture of water and glue works best. Create your solution in a paper cup. Try adding equal parts at first and then mixing with a craft stick add water or glue to get to a consistency that you like. Modge Podge Glue would work as well.

Day 4: Once this has dried your child can add embellishments using a black permanent marker (like a Sharpie). We outlined the paper cut out letters and the leaves and even outlined the tree trunk and branches. Don’t let your child forget to sign the painting.

Day 5: Optional but highly recommended: Add a coat of gloss to the canvas to seal it and make it last for years to come!

Preschool

Craft Idea:

CORNUCOPIA STAMPS:

Materials: White paper, yellow or brown paper, child safe scissors, a piece of bubble wrap cut into a triangle, a used cork, various sizes of plastic bottle tops, various colours of paint, paint brushes, paper towels, newspaper or plastic to cover the work table, art smock or old clothes, paper towels, glue stick.

Step 1: Help your child cut out a cornucopia shape (a horn shape) from the yellow or brown paper.
Step 2: Explain that the various objects (cork, bottle tops, bubble wrap) are going to be the various fruits and vegetables in the cornucopia and ask your child to be creative with the objects.
Step 3: Paint each object whatever colour is appropriate for the fruit/vegetable (for instance you can paint the triangular piece of bubble wrap purple, blue or green to represent grapes) and then press the object paint side down onto the white paper to make a stamp.
Step 4: Continue to encourage your child to make different things out of the objects like brown nuts, oranges, red apples, carrots (using the side of the cork) as he/she stamps them onto the paper. My boys also wanted to use paintbrushes to paint a banana.
Step 5: When the paint dries glue the cornucopia shape onto the paper so it looks like the fruits and vegetables are tumbling out of the horn of plenty.

MULTI-DAY CRAFT PROJECT!

There are so many different Thanksgiving Craft ideas! Have your children pick the one(s) they want to do.

THANK YOU CARDS:

Note: Make them now so they are ready to use for after Christmas, Birthdays or any time your child gets a gift.

Materials: Blank cards (found at a craft store) or use harder construction paper and cut and fold to make your own card, markers and/or crayons, stickers, stamps (try to find one that says “thank you” on it at a craft store).

Step 1: Give your child the blank cards, stickers, stamps and markers/crayons and let him/her decorate the card however he/she likes.
Step 2: Match each card with an envelope and stow away to use when needed.

Crafts

I AM THANKFUL TREE:

Materials: Coloured paper, child safe scissors, glue stick, a pencil.

Step 1: Have your child draw or help your child draw a tree shape on brown paper (we coloured white paper with a brown crayon because we didn’t have any brown paper and thought it looked like tree bark) with a large trunk and many branches.
Step 2: Help your child cut the tree out and paste it on a piece of coloured paper (your child’s choice).
Step 3: Cut out leaf shaped pieces from various coloured pieces of paper (red, brown, yellow, orange) to represent autumn leaves (to make them all the same shape and size as I did, layer the paper over each other and cut together at the same time).
Step 4: Ask your child to think of all the things he/she is thankful for and encourage him/her to write the answers on the leaves. You can write the answers on the leaves for younger children who cannot write yet.
Step 5: Read each leaf out loud as your child glues them to the tree.

TURKEY HANDPRINTS:

NOTE: My eldest son invented this craft when he was 6 years old!

Materials: Paper, paint (brown, red, yellow, orange and black), paint brushes, paper towels, newspaper or plastic to cover the work table, art smock or old clothes, paper towels

Step 1:Help your child paint one of his/her hands including the fingers red and then stamp his/her hand onto the blank paper as a red tail.
Step 2:Help your child paint the other hand palm only (not fingers) brown and then stamp his/her hand onto the blank piece of paper to create the brown body of the turkey.
Step 3: Help your child wash and dry his/her hands before proceeding to the next steps.
Step 4: Using black, yellow, orange and red paint have your child paint on the turkey’s eyes, beak, wattle, and feet.
Step 5: Let the picture dry and then display or glue in your Family Theme Day Scrapbook or give it away as a Thanksgiving Card on Thanksgiving Weekend.