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When you think of holidays that involve a lot of decorating around your home, you likely will think of Christmas and Halloween, or perhaps Easter. However, Thanksgiving gives you a great reason to decorate as well as celebrate. If you make your Thanksgiving decorations yourself, every member of your family can pitch in, including your children.

One of the simplest of all the Thanksgiving crafts for children is the hand-print turkey. Simply have your child place her hand flat on a piece of paper with her thumb stuck out at an angle and her four other fingers together. Trace around her hand with a marker. Her thumb forms the turkey's head, and her four other fingers are the turkey's feathers. Let her color her hand-print turkey with crayons, markers, or paints, then help her add details like the turkey's waddle and feet. If you choose, you can have your child dip her hand into paint and press it on the paper instead of tracing her hand. This technique is great for Thanksgiving greeting cards. You can also have each family member make one for a flock of turkey place cards for the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Children can also help to craft a centerpiece for the Thanksgiving dinner table or any surface in your home. You will need a taper candle, a very small pumpkin, twist ties, glue, and leaves and twigs from outside. Hollow out the pumpkin so that you can fit the base of the taper candle into it. Have your child help you bend and weave the twigs into a circle shaped wreath that will go around the pumpkin, and use twist ties to keep the twigs in this shape. Next, allow your child to use glue to affix leaves in gorgeous fall colors to the wreath in any pattern she likes. You can also add acorns or pinecones for a more autumn feel to the centerpiece.

Finally, your child can make a Thanksgiving garland. Accordion fold a long piece of paper and draw a Thanksgiving motif of your choice on it, making sure to extend the motif to both sides of the paper. You can choose to draw Pilgrims, Indians, horns of plenty, turkeys, or anything you associate with Thanksgiving. Help your child to cut out the motif, going through all layers of the paper but not cutting through the part of the motif that extends to the edge of the paper. Unfold the paper to reveal a string of Thanksgiving motifs, all connected together. Let your child color the individual motifs in whatever colors she likes, and help her add details with a marker if desired. If you cut the garland from colored paper, you can skip the coloring step altogether.

As you can see, Thanksgiving is a great time to do crafts with your children. Not only will your home be beautiful and festive, but you will get to spend some wonderful quality time with your children and have lots of fun creating crafts that will foster their imagination and creativity.