Really Easy Crafts for Thanksgiving

In the rush from Halloween costumes to Christmas shopping, baking, decorating, and sending cards, it's easy to overlook Thanksgiving Day. Or it's easier to focus on eating a lot, not fighting with the family, and snoozing while football goes on and on and on in TV land. Sometimes the hassle and travel for Thanksgiving Day on what is basically just a long weekend drowns out some of the fun for this holiday.

So, here are some easy crafts to do for Thanksgiving Day that will let you feel like you've participated in the holiday. You can bask in the glow of knowing that you too are a crafty mom. And only you will know that you and your three year old did these in about fifteen minutes.

The first is an old favorite, the Indian headband that we probably all made in kindergarten or camp. Cut brown construction paper into long strips, about an inch and a half wide. Put the strips around your child's head to fit snugly, and use staple or tape to close the ends. Have your child decorate the headbands with his or her name, stickers, drawings, or scribbling. Cut "feathers" of various sizes and colors from other construction paper. Glue the feathers to the headband. My four year old daughter loves these, and we make them whenever she feels like being an "alien" (her word for "Indian"). Any preschooler can help you make this easy craft and feel like a big kid. It's a good time to introduce a bit of history to Thanksgiving Day celebrations as well.

The next easy craft to do is placemats. Take a piece of paper that is placemat sized. We use standard letter size paper, or construction or cardstock paper. You can cut other sheets of construction paper into turkey shapes, acorn shapes, pumpkins, or anything else that spells autumn to you and have your child glue them to the placemat sheet. Or you can have the child color a Thanksgiving Day picture from a coloring book, and glue it to the placemat sheet. If your child is not artistically motivated, or you have a lot of placemats to make in a short time, buy some Thanksgiving Day or autumn themed stickers and stick to the placemat sheet. Now, you can laminate the sheet. Or you can put between two sheets of waxed paper and iron them very carefully to create a seal. Or you can make this a very easy craft like I do. I buy a roll of clear Contac paper at the dollar store, or other discount store. I cut two pieces slightly bigger than the place mat; peel the backing off one piece; put the placemat sheet down face up; peel the backing off the other piece; carefully lay this piece down on top of the decorated placemat sheet; press edges together carefully and trim evenly. My daughter loved the ones we made last year so much that she used it for months after Thanksgiving Day. We have over twenty to make this year, so I am sure we will be using the stickers!

Another easy craft favorite, and one that will allow you to start conversations with your children about the real meaning of thanksgiving and how that ties into our celebration of Thanksgiving Day is a Thankful Tree. I've read variations of this craft, but this is the one we use. Have your children trace their hands on various autumn-colored construction paper. You will want about 10-12 hands. Draw and cut out a tree trunk and branches on brown construction paper. The hands will be the leaves of the tree. Your child can write on each leaf what he or she is thankful for. If your children are younger like mine, you can write for them. If you have the time, you can print the thanks out on the computer, using different fonts. Have your children glue the hand-leaves to the tree branches. This would also make great placemats if you covered it per the instructions in the previous easy craft.

So, there it is, three extremely easy crafts to celebrate Thanksgiving Day!