The holidays are so much more fun when you have young kiddos in your life! Their energy and enthusiasm for nearly everything is contagious, and we love to capture their littleness with crafts. 

This Thanksgiving, consider making a handprint pilgrim craft that will be fun and engaging to create, and also give you an opportunity to introduce the story of the First Thanksgiving. 

It’s a time to chat with your children about the Thanksgiving feast and what it means to be thankful.

Whether you are looking for a pilgrim, turkey, or other Thanksgiving-themed creations, check out our Thanksgiving crafts for kids for more ideas. 

There you will find tons of easy-to-implement ideas to keep those little hands busy creating art this November!

Easy Pilgrim Craft

Supplies

• Colored cardstock or construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Pencil
• Pilgrim template (enter your email in the form at the end of this post to have the link sent to you)

Directions

Download the pilgrim template, print, and cut out the pieces you need.

Begin to create the pilgrim’s head by gluing the hair to the top of the head.

Place the eyes on both sides of the head, just above the mouth, and glue them in place.

If you’re making the boy pilgrim, glue the hat to the top of the head. If you’re making the girl pilgrim, glue the bonnet to the top of the head.

Take the hat band and glue it to the base of the boy pilgrim’s hat, then glue the outer buckle to the middle of the hat band. Finish the hat by gluing the inner buckle to the middle of the outer buckle.

Trace your child’s hand two times on white or cream paper, then cut it out. Arrange the handprints with the fingers pointed down and slightly angled outward. Glue the two handprints together, at the pinky side. This is the pilgrim’s collar.

Place the handprint collar behind the pilgrim’s head and glue it to the chin.

Finish up by gluing the shirt piece to the back and bottom of the handprint collar.

That’s it! Isn’t this a fun and cute handprint craft that’s great for Thanksgiving?

Looking for some Thanksgiving fun and learning for your kids? Look no further than this Thanksgiving fun bundle! It’s packed with 79 pages of Thanksgiving-themed worksheets, do a dot printables, family activities, and more. This is the perfect way to get your kids excited about Thanksgiving and help them learn all about this special holiday. So don’t wait – grab the Thanksgiving printables bundle today!

Thanksgiving Ideas For Kids

Parents and teachers love Thanksgiving because it’s a great opportunity to teach kids about the importance of being thankful and so much more. And what better way to do that than with some fun Thanksgiving crafts, books, and activities?

With these activities, kids can learn about the history of the holiday and why we celebrate it. They can also get into the spirit of giving by making crafts that can be given to friends and family.

And of course, they’ll have a blast doing all of this with their friends and family. So if you’re looking for a way to teach your kids the true meaning of Thanksgiving, be sure to check out all of these ideas.

Kids’ Thanksgiving Books

Below are some of the top Thanksgiving books for kids!

Turkey Trouble – If you’ve never read this book, you have to add it to your holiday collection! It’s so cute and fun and kids just love it! Follow the turkey around the farm as he disguises himself as different animals so the farmer doesn’t catch him for Thanksgiving dinner!

How To Catch A Turkey – Kids who love the How To Catch books will want to see all the crazy contraptions kids make to try to catch a turkey loose at the school!

Pete The Cat: The First Thanksgiving -Every Pete the Cat book is fantastic, but this one takes it up a notch with flaps for the kids to open. It’s a great way to get the kids excited about reading and Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Kids’ Crafts & Activities

We have many crafty ideas and themed printables for this Thanksgiving season that will keep your kids smiling!  Plus, these creations will be special keepsakes for families to cherish for years to come. 

If you are looking for a simple craft that will keep them giggling, make a popcorn turkey disguise craft. Download the free template, grab some basic supplies and your kids are ready to create. 

There are several children’s books about turkeys who are disguising themselves to avoid being the main course at Thanksgiving dinner.  Try reading some of them, then make this hidden turkey craft to go along with it. 

You can even extend the book by brainstorming other ways a turkey could disguise itself. But be prepared:  kids come up with the silliest ideas! It’s a perfect read-aloud, craft, and conversation starter combo for preschoolers and young primary kids.  

One of our favorite parts of making a turkey craft is letting little ones get creative with the feathers.   Whether you choose to make a personalized name turkey craft or the turkey popsicle stick craft (both offer a free turkey template!), you can let your little artists decide what colors they would like to make the turkey feathers! 

We always love to see if the little ones create a pattern or a rainbow or just use their favorite color!  How cute would these turkeys be as decorations on the Thanksgiving dinner table?!

Parents who want to explore more crafts with a pilgrim theme will love this toilet paper roll pilgrim craft.  Choose from an adorable boy and girl pilgrim templates and grab your empty toilet paper roll.  And the bonus is we have a template for you to use!  With some simple supplies, these little creations would also look adorable on display in your home, and your child will feel so proud of their artwork!

Keep the Thanksgiving theme going with turkey worksheets, turkey connect the dots printables, and turkey coloring pages.  These worksheets and coloring pages will help little ones practice their fine motor skills as well as create Thanksgiving pictures that are “refrigerator-worthy”!

They’ll also provide hours of fun while helping build some basic educational skills, like counting, number sense, and letter recognition. Plus, with the amount of cooking and preparing that adults need to do for the big Thanksgiving meal, these sheets can help keep the kids occupied and happy.  It’s a WIN-WIN!

More Thanksgiving Fun

• This giant Thanksgiving coloring poster is such a fun activity for the big day.
• Little girls will love this adorable “gobble, gobble, gobble” t-shirt.
• Encourage exploration with this fall sensory bin.

Share With Us

Did you make this craft with your kids or students? We’d love to feature them on our social media!

For a chance to have your child’s craft featured, simply snap a picture of the completed project and post it to our Facebook page, email it to us directly by clicking here, or use #simpleeverydaymom on your social media!

More Thanksgiving Ideas

Pilgrim Handprint Template