FIVE Popular Thanksgiving Activities For Kids

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, there’s still time to weave in some engaging Thanksgiving activities for kids that build on speech and language skills. Here are five updated ideas to bring the holiday spirit into your sessions while supporting language development.

Warning: smiles are contagious!

Fun Thanksgiving Activities for Kids: Creative Playdough Crafts

First up is my Play dough appetizer tray. I’ve seen many play dough trays, like Pre-K Pages‘, so I created my own version with personalized contents. I utilized my craft supplies and bought decorative leaves and alphabet letters to enhance the activity.

We have worked on requesting, commenting, and following directions while making unique turkeys. Some used Popsicle sticks for legs, others used pipe cleaners and decorative leaves to create feathers for their crafts. The Popsicle sticks have also come in handy for cutting the dough. Hands down, this activity has been highly preferred among many (including caregivers.)

Fun Thanksgiving Activities for Kids: Colorful Tablecloth

Another hit during Thanksgiving was my paper tablecloth. I scored this find while looking for Halloween clearance items at Target, so I grabbed a few to use across a couple of years. My younger clients have colored while listening to auditory bombardment lists containing target speech sounds, while my older clients have played tic-tac-toe or earned a chance to color as a reward for completing work.

Here are a couple more ways I’ve used the tablecloth in speech and language sessions:

1. Thanksgiving Word Webs

   • Have your clients create word webs related to Thanksgiving. They can write or draw pictures of foods, animals, or objects associated with the holiday. For example, the word turkey could have words like feathers, farm, and gobble branching from it.
   • Speech Focus: Use this activity to target initial sounds like /t/ in “turkey,” /f/ in “farm,” or /g/ in “gobble.”
   • Language Focus: Encourage clients to describe the items in their word web using adjectives (e.g., “The turkey is big” or “The pie is delicious.”).

     2. Thanksgiving Scenes for Storytelling

• • Draw or color a Thanksgiving scene on the tablecloth, such as a family at a dinner table, a farm, or a harvest field. Use this to encourage storytelling, helping clients sequence events and build narratives.
  • Speech Focus: Have clients focus on sentence structure and practice articulation by retelling what is happening in the scene.
  • Language Focus: Guide the children in using past-tense verbs (e.g., “The family ate turkey” or “The farmer picked pumpkins”) while narrating their story.

These simple activities provide fun and interactive ways to work on both speech and language goals, making the tablecloth a versatile tool for your sessions!

Thanksgiving-Themed Pretend Play: Farm House

What’s a speech and language session without some pretend play time? I paired my farm house with Fisher Price Thanksgiving pieces to talk about sitting at the table, eating, and bringing food from the farm to the dinner table. You can pick up some shredded, yellow paper to use as hay for the barn and easily dispose of it between clients. Below are some additional details to enhance speech and language sessions:

Task	Materials Needed	Speech Targets	Language Examples
Setting the Thanksgiving Table	Farmhouse toy, Fisher Price Thanksgiving pieces, toy plates and cups	/t/, /b/, /s/ sounds	“Put the turkey on the table.” “Give the plate to the pig.”
Bringing Food from the Farm	Toy animals, toy food, shredded yellow paper (hay), toy truck	Action words: bring, carry, load	“The cow carries the food to the table.” “Let’s load the truck with hay.”
Feeding the Farm Animals	Toy farm animals, toy food (popcorn kernels, pumpkins, etc.), toy bucket	Vocabulary: food, animals, farm	“The horse is eating corn.” “Feed the cow some pumpkins.”
Harvesting Crops for Dinner	Shredded yellow paper (hay), toy vegetables (corn, pumpkins), toy baskets	Sequence: first, next, last	“First, we pick the corn. Then, we take it to the kitchen.”
Driving the Tractor to the Farm	Toy tractor, farm animals, toy food	/k/ and /t/ sounds	“Drive the tractor to the kitchen.” “The cat is sitting on the tractor.”
Talking About the Feast	Farmhouse toy, toy food, Thanksgiving toy pieces	Phrases: in, on, next to	“The turkey is on the table.” “The chair is next to the pig.”
Describing the Thanksgiving Meal	Toy food, farmhouse toy table, plates and utensils	Adjectives: hot, cold, big, small	“The pumpkin pie is big.” “The hot turkey is ready to eat.”

By incorporating these fun Thanksgiving activities for kids into your therapy sessions, you can engage young clients in meaningful ways while supporting their speech and language development.