8 Simple Thanksgiving Activities For Toddlers For A Daycare Classroom
Gobble Gobble! I am sharing 8 simple Thanksgiving activities for toddlers that are easy to prep and loads of fun to do! Are you a daycare provider, toddler teacher, or homeschool mama? All my printable Thanksgiving activities for toddlers are FREE! Click the link to download your Free Thanksgiving Lesson Plan! This is a full week of Thanksgiving activities perfect for toddlers.
I have been a daycare provider for 14 years, and I love to share easy toddler activities that will keep little ones busy and having fun. Do you feel overwhelmed planning what to do with your daycare students? Do you struggle to keep their attention? I got you covered, if this is your first time finding ClubbhouseKids, I would encourage you to join my email list. I will send you loads of Freebies, daycare tips, and most of all encouragement!
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Thanksgiving Crafts Ideas For Toddlers
Let’s start with Thanksgiving crafts ideas for toddlers. I have two adorable Thanksgiving crafts for toddlers to share with you. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about the littlest ones in your care, if you’ve been searching Daycare Thanksgiving Craft for infants, these will work amazing for your infants in your care as well! With toddlers, I like to keep crafts simple, when you are working with multiple little ones at a time, simple Thanksgiving crafts for toddlers will be much easier to handle.
Pumpkin Pie Craft
You can’t get any cuter than this pumpkin pie craft. Using this how to craft pumpkin pie printable your little ones will decorate it. For this craft, I place glitter glue, white glue, pumpkin spice seasoning, cinnamon, and white cotton balls on the table. My toddlers have a ball decorating their pumpkin pie craft. Bonus, your classroom will smell amazing as they shake the cinnamon and pumpkin spice seasoning over their globs of glue. On top of the pie, they can glue a white cotton ball, you can’t have pumpkin pie without whipped topping!
Turkey Craft Toddlers
The second Thanksgiving crafts ideas for toddlers I will be sharing is a turkey craft. This turkey craft toddlers is perfect for working on fine motor development. I give each toddler a piece of brown construction paper. They get to rip the paper into little pieces. As a child tears paper, they improve their hand strength which works out their small hand muscles needed to button, zip, and scribble. After my toddlers have ripped up their paper they get to squeeze white glue all over the turkey craft printable and glue all the little pieces on the paper. This Turkey craft for Thanksgiving also includes a cute Thanksgiving poem that I will read to them.
Thanksgiving Dramatic Play
Setting up a Thanksgiving Dramatic Play Center is another fun Thanksgiving Activity for the classroom. When creating a Thanksgiving dramatic play for toddlers you want to keep it simple! Toddlers can’t handle too many play items at a time. This can quickly become very overwhelming and will make clean-up time stressful for you and them! I like to include a small number of items, and add more throughout the week. So maybe at the beginning of the week, the Thanksgiving Dramatic play center will only have 10 items in it, and I add a couple of new related ones every evening after closing. This will help keep their attention and increase engagement.
I also like to role-play in my dramatic play centers with my toddlers. In a Thanksgiving Dramatic Play Center, I might pretend to stir mashed potatoes or set a Thanksgiving Table. By helping Toddlers see different ways they can manipulate the Thanksgiving Dramatic Play items, I promise you will see an increase in focus and interest in the dramatic play center.
One thing I work on in my classroom is stretching out my toddler’s attention span. A Thanksgiving Dramatic Play Center is a great way to work on and reach that goal.
Songs For Thanksgiving
Singing Songs for Thanksgiving is a great way to celebrate the holiday with your little ones. This Thanksgiving song for kids will get your students giggling and moving. It goes to the tune “Are You Sleeping.” I sing songs with my toddlers all day long, but our favorite time to sing songs is during circle time. Do you do circle time with your toddlers? If you are curious how I do circle time with toddlers, check out my November Circle Time Printables. It will show you exactly what to do to have an amazing circle time with your little ones.
Are you looking for more songs for Thanksgiving? Click here to print all my songs for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Activities For The Classroom
So what do you do with a bunch of 2-year-olds to celebrate Thanksgiving? I have some super fun Thanksgiving activities for the classroom to share with you. These are tried and true Thanksgiving activities that my students love and I hope your’s will too.
Turkey Shape Learning Game
The first Thanksgiving activity is a turkey shape learning game. The toddler age is a great time to introduce the shapes. In this shape learning game, children will try and find Mr. Turkey who is hiding behind shape hay. Your students will call out the shape they think he is hiding behind and then see if they are right!
Turkey Colors Game
This is a great Thanksgiving game to do during circle time. This Turkey colors game is so much fun! For this game, you will say the chant with your students to the color crayon you are holding up. Such as “Turkey wore his brown feathers.” After saying the chant you would put the brown crayon on the turkey. After you have sung the chant for each of the colors, the turkey will have beautiful feathers. If you are looking for a awesome Easel to add to your circle time area. I love this Crayola one I use in my classroom. It folds up and can be put away when we aren’t using it.
Feast Time
I’ve shared multiple Thanksgiving activities for the classroom, but this last one is my favorite! In my classroom, we call this game Feast Time! I put a table printable on our easel and the children complete some large motor movements pretending to be different foods you would find at a Thanksgiving feast. As they complete the movements we place that particular food on the clipart table. So if we are pretending to be cranberry sauce, we will jiggle our bodies and then place the cranberry sauce on the table. You guys, toddlers LOVE this activity. We end up doing this one multiple times.
Best Thanksgiving Books For Toddlers
Here are 6 of the best Thanksgiving Books for Toddlers. I have books all over my classroom. Out of all the activities I do with my students in my classroom, reading to them is by far the most important. Reading to toddlers increases their vocabulary, language development, listening skills and so much more!
1- Llama Llama Gives Thanks By Anna Dewdney
2- One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims By B.G Hennessy
3- Where Is Baby’s Turkey? By Karen Katz
4- The Very First Thanksgiving Day By Rhonda Gowler Greene
5- The Littlest Pilgrim By Brandi Dougherty
6- The First Thanksgiving Day By Laura Krauss Melmed
Easy Thanksgiving Activities For Toddlers
I hope you enjoyed these easy Thanksgiving activities for toddlers. Don’t forget to get your download your free Thanksgiving Lesson Plan. If you are looking for a full month of Thanksgiving activities for your toddlers, check out my Let’s Be Thankful Unit. This unit includes 4 full weeks of lesson plans all focused on being thankful for family and friends! My toddler units include crafts, songs, gross motor activities, fine motor activities, large group games, tot trays and so much more!
I’ve linked some more amazing Thanksgiving Activities for toddlers if you are wanting to check out some other great homeschool mamas and daycare providers. Are you a blogger? I love to follow other blogs that provide amazing content to our daycare community. Comment below with your blog or share what Thanksgiving activities you do in your classroom. Finally, don’t forget if you aren’t part of the ClubbhouseKids Email list, join here.
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