With Thanksgiving arriving soon, the holiday means friends and family coming together once more, celebrating over a bountiful feast, and expressing their gratitude.
If you’re a parent, caregiver, or holiday host looking to reduce the amount of screentime for children and guests during your Thanksgiving get-together, Melissa & Doug has assembled this helpful list of 10 screen-free ways to play this Thanksgiving.
Play ideas to prepare a screen-free Thanksgiving for kids
Tip #1: Keep kids busy & put 'em to work!
Enlist their help with age-appropriate tasks throughout the day: setting the table, welcoming guests, hanging up coats, passing out snacks, even helping with the dishes and clean-up too with Melissa & Doug’s Dust! Sweep! Mop!
Tip #2: Create a Welcome Sign & Menu
If you’ve got a Melissa & Doug easel and art supplies, have the kiddos create a welcome sign for the family Thanksgiving feast, complete with a menu listing what’s for dinner!
Tip #3: Stage a DIY Parade
Does your family watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade every year? Everybody loves a parade…so put on one at home before the turkey dinner! Kids can use Melissa & Doug vehicles and arts & crafts supplies to create their own personalized “floats” for their DIY parade, then dress up in role play costumes to add some colorful pizzazz to the proceedings. Pick your parade route and get marching!
Tip #4: Play Turkey-Themed Games
A quick online search turns up plenty of helpful suggestions for Thanksgiving Day-themed games: charades, bingo, scavenger hunt, Would You Rather, and I Spy, just to name a few. If you’ve got a Melissa & Doug bowling game, you could transform it into an indoor Turkey Bowling competition with some minor creative alterations!
Tip #5: Thankful Arts & Crafts
Help teach kids the importance of gratitude and thankfulness with Melissa & Doug arts and crafts supplies to create gratitude notes for friends and family, DIY turkey crafts, and homemade fall foliage.
Tip #6: Colorfully reinvent the Kids’ Table!
Thanks to the WhatWeDoAllDay.com blog for this one: Consider forgoing a typical tablecloth for the kids’ table, and cover it instead with butcher block paper or the Melissa & Doug Easel Paper Roll (18” x 75”), and let the kids express themselves creatively! They can collaborate on a one-of-a-kind holiday masterpiece that could become a keepsake for the hosts…what a colorful way to start a new Thanksgiving tradition!
Tip #7: Upgrade Kids’ Placemats, Too
Even the littlest details matter, especially to kids. Replace the usual decorative holiday placemat with the Melissa & Doug Playmats Food Fun, which gives kids 24 pages of creative food-themed fun that promotes fine motor skills, letter and number skills, color recognition, creative expression.
Tip #8: Take an After-Dinner Family Hike
Many folks enjoy an after-meal constitutional, so why not take an official Family Hike after Thanksgiving dinner? Let the kiddos serve as tour guides with the Grand Canyon National Park Hiking Gear Play Set, and go on an extended nature walk in the neighborhood or at a local green space so the family can bond, get moving, and enjoy nature together. If the weather permits, this is a good opportunity for an outdoor scavenger hunt, too!
Tip #9: Holiday Printables for Creative Family Fun
Enjoying creative fun with FREE Printable coloring and activity sheets from Melissa & Doug is a great activity: It can be done solo or in a group, and all you need are materials and dedicated space, such as a table, desk, or lap board. We’ve got FREE November Printables & Activities available right now and right here!
Tip #10: Delightful Dessert-Themed Sensory Play
Credit to NaturalBeachLiving.com blog for this Thanksgiving-themed play idea that’s perfect for toddlers and preschoolers: create a Pumpkin Pie Dough Sensory Play Bin! The blog’s DIY play dough recipe includes pumpkin spices that add a delightfully seasonal scent to play time. (To save time without the scent, you could use Melissa & Doug’s Created by Me Modeling Dough Kit.) Create sensory stations with your pumpkin play dough, dried beans, dried corn, dried pasta, mini pumpkins, tiny autumnal peppers, pumpkin seeds, or whatever you can dream up! Toddlers and preschools especially will enjoy the hands-on approach of squishing, squeezing, catching, transferring and more—all great skills developed through play!
Click on the links below for more great play-themed blogs from Melissa & Doug!
Free November Printables & Activities for Kids
Toys that Grow with Your Child
5 Fundamental Skills You Can Teach Kids Through Play
Throw a Melissa & Doug Pizza and Ice Cream Party at Home!
Building Confidence: Scotty & Spillway's Inspiring Story
Top Toys Every Grandparent Should Have
