Activity Idea For Small Kids on Thanksgiving

QUESTION

We're having the whole family over for Thanksgiving. There are several little ones, ages 2 to 8. I need a project to keep them busy. Do you have a suggestion for me?

ANSWER

The Milk Jug Turkey Game is just what you need! Here's how it works:

Prepare the Turkey

Wash an empty plastic milk jug and cut off the top section where the lid attaches. (An adult can do this with a craft knife.)

Paint the jug, adding wings and a red gobbler. Glue a pom pom to the top of the handle for the head and add giggle eyes and a construction paper or craft foam beak. Cut tail feathers from construction paper or craft foam pieces and glue them to the back.

You may want to have the turkey jug already prepared. Or you might want to have it as a pre-dinner activity with the game itself as after-dinner fun.

Play the Game

To play a game, stand above the turkey and drop pencils or clothespins and see how many you can get inside the turkey jug. Hold the pencil or clothespin in your hand and place your hand at the level of your nose while standing over the jug. Dropping the item from "nose level" makes the game fair for all ages.

Have fun and let me know how this works for you.
--Kas

Comments

Thanksgiving dishes

Thanksgiving Day, known informally as Turkey Day, is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends for which all have been blessed of material possessions and relationships. Green bean casserole has been a standard on the Thanksgiving dining room table for about half a century. Since first introduced by Campbell's Soup business, the green bean casserole formula has not changed much.

Kas Winters

Kas Winters, the "Mother of Family Ideas", provides resources to help families thrive. An author, illustrator, publisher and public speaker, this grandmother creates books, offers hundreds of family activity articles on her website and does workshops for parents and children. She also represents almost 70 other authors and helps writers get their words into print.

Kas is passionate about helping children develop a positive self-image, providing hands-on experiences that give them confidence, and building strong supportive relationships. Her basic philosophy is that children learn best when they think they are having fun and her book, "Mother Lode" includes more than 5,000 simple, activities for toddlers through teens making learning on any topic enjoyable and developing children's imaginations. Her ideas use everyday materials, usually free, which helps to make parenting easy. Kas has been the resident "family activities expert" on Pregnancy.org for a couple of years.