Thinking of activities to do with the children you are babysitting may be difficult, especially if you want to get them off of a device and engaged in the real world. Crafts are a great and easy way to do this, and younger children will love it. Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, here are a few Thanksgiving-related crafts for you to do while babysitting.ย
- Pipe-Cleaner Pumpkins!
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This craft could work for Halloween, and you only need two supplies to complete it. For this, you twist 4 orange pipe cleaners in the center. You cover each pipe cleaner with orange beads (or whatever color you prefer) and twist them at the top, making sure to keep the pipe cleaners curved for a round shape. Top it off with a short green pipe cleaner stem and you are done!
- Fall leaf turkey!
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This craft can be followed by an activity, taking a walk, and collecting leaves! For this activity, you only need paper, markers, scissors, glue, and leaves! After collecting leaves, you use the markers to trace your hand and decorate your hand to look like a turkey, adding eyes and a beak. After finishing your turkey, cut it out and glue the leaves on to look like feathers!!
- Paper bag turkeys and scarecrows!
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For this one, you can get a lot more creative. For a turkey, you can use googly eyes, feathers, markers, and construction paper to turn your bag into a cute little turkey. For a scarecrow, you would use the same materials, but replace feathers with straw! This craft could be followed by playing with the puppets!
- Wooden spooned scarecrows
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This one could make cute kitchen decor. For this craft, you will use burlap, construction paper, markers, and googly eyes to make a simple spoon into a wooden scarecrow friend. If you make more than one, you can put them in a cup or vase in the kitchen. For a step up, try and recreate your family!
- Pumpkin pie coasters
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This one is really easy and only requires scissors, glue, and brown, orange, and white felt. For this, you cut out the brown and orange triangles, and make squiggle circles (the whipped cream) out of the felt. Glue the felt together and boom! A cute and functional fall craft you can use for Thanksgiving dinner
- Pine Cone Turkeys!
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This one could also be preceded by a walk. After finding some perfect pine cones, using construction paper you can make a really adorable turley! You can also use real feathers or pipe cleaners, and googly eyes for eyes.
- Thankful jars
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This one is easy and allows more creativity. For this one, you just paint the mason jar with whatever you want! Throughout the week the family can write what they are thankful for on slips of paper and put them in the jar for them to read at Thanksgiving dinner.
- Turkey placemats
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This one may require a laminator. For this, you just doodle on a sheet of paper and laminate it to use as a placemat for dinner! If you do not have a laminator, scotch tape on both sides of the paper works wonders.
