Thanksgiving Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers: Snoods

Ever played the card game "Spoons"?

Well I like to call this version "Snoods" because you use that funky part
of a turkey--the snood--instead of spoons.

Click here for the rules of the game (it's simple enough to play with older kids).
Here is the original idea by Family Fun. I made mine a little simpler.
The snoods can be made and enjoyed by all ages!

Materials:
Popsicle sticks (large ones are best)
yellow and orange (or red) foam paper
glue

Step One: Cut out a tear drop shape in orange or red and glue it onto the top of your stick, tilting it to the right or left a bit.


Step Two: Cut out a long triangle for the beak, snipping off the top corners (see third photo). Glue on top of the orange piece.

And you're ready to play!
For young toddlers or preschoolers, you could use these to play "I Spy." You name something you see and once they find it, they can grab their snood and hold it up to their face.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers: Racing Turkeys

If you have some a group of kids together this Thanksgiving, here's a fun activity to keep them entertained for a while. Remember the little spiders we blew across the floor with straws? Well, now you can race with mini turkeys.

Materials:
brown fuzzy balls
orange construction paper
small feathers
hot glue

Cut your feathers small enough so that they're not too heavy to blow across the floor. Glue them on the back of the fuzzy ball. Then cut your beak out of the orange construction paper and glue in on the front.





Aren't they cute?

Now time to race!

Preschooler Activities for Thanksgiving: Turkey greeting cards

Sometimes it's nice to send a little hand-made note to the grandparents on the holidays.
Here's a fun idea for Thanksgiving.

Trace your toddler's hands onto construction paper, leaving room to fold the sheet in half at the wrists.

Cut out the hands so that the fold is at the wrist, making a card that opens up at the fingers.
Have your toddler glue eyes and beak and color the "feathers."

Write a nice note inside and mail away!

Have fun preparing for the holidays! More ideas coming shortly...

Toddler and Preschooler Activities for Thanksgiving: Gratitude Turkey

Well, my due date is coming up in about 2 weeks...so I'm trying to squeeze in as many Thanksgiving activities as possible with my girls before baby #3 comes along. Unfortunately, I'm cleaning and painting and "nesting" like crazy, so I haven't been as consistent as I'd wish. Anyway, here's a fun activity that doubles as a homemade centerpiece for your table.
Materials: styrofoam ball markers foam paper toothpicks hot glue stickers
Step One: Color your styrofoam ball brown OR if you have the energy, have your toddler paint it brown. You could also cut out brown feathers with your foam paper. He just needs to be brown!

You can tell we weren't aiming for perfection here. Step Two: Give your turkey two feet and a tail. This will allow him to stand on his own. I taped the toothpicks to the foam paper in this picture, but later glued them with hot glue because it was stronger. Step Three: Using the foam paper, cut out several feathers of varying colors for your toddler to decorate. They can draw, use stickers, or write what they are grateful for on each feather. The one my daughter is holding in the picture above is supposed to say "smiles."
Step Four: Make your turkey's head. I cut out the head from black foam paper and made the eyes out of sticky felt. You could also use googly eyes.

This feather was a favorite of mine. My one year old found a sticker that put it simply: I'm grateful for "u."



Ta-da! A gratitude turkey that can sit on your table and remind you of the little things that matter most.
This year, I'm grateful for girls. I love that I get three of them all to myself.

Fall Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers: Acorn Necklaces

I found this idea on the Family Fun website and filed it away in my mind as a "back-up" activity for a rainy day. Honestly, it looked too difficult. First of all, where do you find acorns? For some reason, in my mind they were akin to fireflies--one of those rare and random things that you can't just find in your backyard (I really thought fireflies were fake until I moved to Georgia and saw them for myself). So one day we were out for a walk and my daughter stopped and picked up something from the ground and said, "Look Mom! An acorn!" Turns out that acorns come from oak trees, which are everywhere. Where have I been? Thus, this activity really happened and it was easier and more fun than I thought.

Materials:

Capped acorns
yarn
scissors
hot glue or tacky glue
marker
googly eyes (optional)

Step One:
Draw a face on your acorn. OR you can glue googly eyes onto them and just draw a mouth. I use hot glue b/c it dries fast.

Step Two:
Glue on the hair, made out of small pieces of yarn.

Step Three:
Glue on the top of the acorn (the "hat")

Step Four:
Wrap a long piece of yarn (the necklace) around the top of the acorn (if there's a stem) and secure it in place with more glue. If there's no stem, you can glue the long piece on under the hat.


I LOVED this activity because it was simple and unique and my daughter was very happy with the outcome!

Toddler and Preschooler Activities: Queen or King for a Day

We recently visited my mom's house and she pulled out this book, The Usborne Big Book of Fairy Things to Make and Do, which provided great entertainment for my girls. We opened up to the activity on making crowns so the girls could be Queens for a day. So for you mothers of boys, you could make more "masculine" crowns and they could be Kings for a day.

They could practice speaking politely, like royalty does, and use their magic words. They could help make important decisions that day such as what snacks and meals to eat, what clothes to wear, and what activities to do (within reason!). You could play "Follow the Leader" with them or "Simon Says," replacing their name for Simon.

It's fun to make them feel special on just an ordinary day.

Here's the book.

And the crowns...

Measure a strip a paper around your toddler's head and cut two lines halfway through the ends of the strip so they fit together.



Decorate the band to your liking with stickers or markers.

We rolled strips of foil to give our crowns a decorative flare.

And there you have it; Queen or King for a day.
(Maybe we should make these for ourselves whenever we feel the need for
a random "Mother's Day.")

Toddler and Preschooler Activities for the Letter L: Leaf Art

Here's a great activity to do with all the leaves falling right outside your door. I found this book, Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert that describes a good friend that takes shape in the leaves. She also shows animals made out of different leaf shapes, such as ducks, mice, butterflies, and turkeys. I thought it would be fun to go on a "Leaf Man Hunt" and find leaves of different shapes that we could use to make the same animals that are in this book--or a Leaf Man of our own.



My daughter chose to make a mouse first.


We found a leaf that looked similar to the shape they used in the book and glued on ears. The stem of the big leaf was the tail. We drew two eyes with a black marker.


There's lots of possibilities with this activity. Have fun!
(Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving??)