While we didn't exactly have a festival, that's what the kids called the day before Thanksgiving at daycare. We made a big feast to eat for lunch, lava cake and a birthday celebration, and lots of activities. Here's a look at our Daycare Thanksgiving Festival:
My day began at 1:30 a.m. to put the turkey in the Crock Pot. I pre-made corn casserole, but the kids helped with the rest of the meal! I was very impressed that they actually helped and it wasn't incredibly stressful for me.
Breakfast included freshly made cinnamon rolls (thank you Pillsbury) and sausage. As kids arrived at daycare, they colored turkeys, fall wooden shapes, and created their own Thanksgiving pictures.
After our Arts and Crafts time, I had fully planned to play a game of the Turkey Hop. The kids had other ideas and dissected daycare's new Human Body over and over again. Despite it not having anything to do with Thanksgiving it was very educational and the kids love it.
Our delicious fruit tray turkey: half of an apple (for the turkey body), oranges, strawberries, sliced bananas, and kiwi. It was completely demolished in 4 minutes. Except for the sliced bananas. Those they touched and then offered them to our daycare helper for her snack. She smartly passed them up.
A favorite part of the morning was helping me mash the potatoes. Which became them playing with the potatoes in bowls and pie pans.
The kids played with the Fall Sensory Bin one last time this season before it was packed away until next September.
One of my favorite things from the day was our starting our new Thankful table cloth. I used an ivory twin sheet (it was a $10 sheet from Walmart) and Sharpie markers to draw pictures of things they're thankful for and write (for those that could) what they're thankful for. I loved how it turned out and plan on having the kids do their thankful drawings on it every Thanksgiving Festival day.
Our meal consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh green beans (seasoned by the kids), corn casserole, and dinner rolls. The meal was rounded out with chocolate lava cake and a birthday celebration.
After lunch the kids napped, played outdoors, and created a "dodge it" game with a toy catapult. We never got around to dancing the Turkey Pokey (yes, I WAS looking forward to this), but the kids came up with their own games and ideas for this Festival.
For more ideas on celebrating Thanksgiving with kids, check out: