HOLIDAYS
HOLIDAYS
Celebrating Thanksgiving usually involves eating turkey with all the trimmings, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and rooting on favorite football teams. Beyond the anticipation of Santa Claus at the end of the parade, children can find it hard to get excited about the rest of the day. If they are bored, completing your to-do list for Thanksgiving dinner just got harder. Combat their restlessness (and save your sanity!) by assigning them the task of performing a skit for your entire family.
In addition to keeping them busy, here are three other benefits of Thanksgiving skits for kids. Performing skits
- makes them feel important by putting them in charge of entertaining dinner guests
- builds their excitement about the holiday because they have a special job to look forward to
- allows them to be creative while teaching the history and meaning of Thanksgiving
The skits presented here range from serious to silly, easy to elaborate. Use them as inspiration for your kids' Thanksgiving Day amusement.
- The Story of the First Thanksgiving
- Top 5 Ways to Get Kids Involved in Thanksgiving
- Thanksgiving Art Projects for Kids
- Glad I'm Not a Turkey - a puppet skit with a lamb and an eagle debating the fate of turkeys
- The Ugly Turkey - an adaptation of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson
- The Meal Must Go On - another skit devoted to dinner where traditional Thanksgiving foods argue over who is most important to the meal
- Find a script (check libraries, bookstores and online) or write your own about the first Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and Native Americans.
- Assign roles to each child.
- Put together costumes and gather props.
- Help kids rehearse their lines before the big day.
- Put on the show!
Supplies
- books, fact sheets and images about Thanksgiving
- colored cardstock or construction paper
- crayons or colored pencils
- possible props (play food, fall decorations, dried flowers or leaves, etc)
- dress up clothes
- For each letter of the alphabet, have kids identify food, people and other symbols related to Thanksgiving.
- Encourage them to be creative with answers and be ready to help if they are stuck on a tough letter. Here are some examples:• H is for Harvest• M is for Mayflower• X is for eXplore
- After the alphabet is completed, kids can draw a picture, choose a prop or make a costume representing each letter.
- When it is time for the show, kids present each letter and give a reason why it was chosen.
and Holiday Table
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