My daughter told me Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday. What?? Even with Christmas and all of its treats and treasure? I was shocked and delighted to hear how much she loved a holiday that is all about giving thanks. Being an artsy Mom, I LOVE making holidays special for the kids. I can't just stop at a simple perler bead craft. No, I spend my free time dreaming up educational and artistic projects for us to undertake, sometimes to my peril, as my monthly craft store bill often exceeds the amount of craft projects that three tiny humans can complete in an entire year. On top of that, my husband and I homeschool, which only fuels my fire to dream up new, innovative projects for our family. This year I’ve really decided to run with it, creating and embracing all the fun things we can do inside to stoke the fun and excitement for Thanksgiving. I'm going to try to point us all back to thankfulness during a year that has been trying to say the least. Hey, maybe this will become my favorite holiday too. Nothing would surprise me in 2020!

This Thanksgiving I created a few fun printables for us to do that you can use as a break from school, as an add-on for the little ones' schooling, or just as a fun activity to do together! I hope you enjoy them and have a Happy Thanksgiving! I'm very thankful for you.

First, we made Turkeys because that is a must! You can download the printable to cut out your turkey head and glue it onto a cardboard paper roll. Then, use your imagination on how to create a fun turkey plume. We painted coffee filters here but you could use anything, including real feathers.

Next, I created a printable playdough mat, which you can download and use as base for counting kernels of popcorn. We used yellow playdough to make the cobs and then the kids had fun pressing popcorn kernels into them. We also talked about how the Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to grow corn. There is a lot of fun information on that if you want to add in more learning.

Finally we had fun digging up a recipe that my mom makes every holiday, and we made it with the kids. We wrote it down on our printable so that we can keep it and pull it out whenever the mood should strike for Grandma Joanie's Yorkshire Pudding. Cooking with the kids is always more work, but so worth the joy they have seeing something come out of the oven that they helped to make.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!