Free Printable Thanksgiving and autumn Coloring pages and crafts for kids

This is an easy activity for kids!

You will need...
* Crayons or markers
* Scissors
* A Paper Plate or piece of card board cut into a ring.
* White glue
* 5 Printed copies of the leaves below
* Autumn Colored Ribbon (red, orange, yellow, brown or varying earth tones)
Cut the center out of a paper plate or piece of cardboard or poster board, leaving a ring.

How much work your child can do here depends upon their developmental abilities. If you use cardboard as opposed to a paper plate, then you should cut cardboard with scissors for smaller children- even if they are ok at cutting paper.

Have your child color the leaves in bright autumn colors.

If they are able to cut with scissors, have them cut the leaves out (otherwise you cut the leaves out).

Have your child arrange the leaves on the paper ring and glue down! Try to make sure that none of the cardboard beneath shows through- you may be left with a small gap at the end (that's ok, that will be where you stick the ribbon!)

Tie the ribbon into a bow.

Where the circle comes together, add a bow to cover the seam or gap!

To help your child prevent a mess, trying rhyming with them a few times in a sing song voice..
"Just a dot, Not a lot!"

Here is another craft that you can use the leaves coloring page for! This is a Thankful Jar- a place for everyone in the family to write something that they are Thankful for. Some people pass the jar around the table at Thanksgiving dinner and pick one to read, other people leave them alone in the jar as private thoughts.

For this activity you will need...

* On old jar-cleaned out
*1 printable leaves coloring page
* Autumn colored crayons
* 1 small rectangle of paper
* Paper bag or other brown paper
* Scissors

Have the child color in the leaves in different fall colors. Have them cut the leaves out or help them cut them out.

Write "Thankful Jar" or something similar on the rectangle of paper.

Glue the leaves and the title onto the jar.

Cut the brown paper into strips about 1 %u2212 1/2 inches wide.

Distribute the leaves and have everyone write something they are thankful for.

Curl the brown paper around your fingers before putting it in the jar.

This was a very fun fall craft. My son and I collected some sticks and washed and dried them- then he used them to make a very cute pencil holder! I still use this pencil holder 3 years later! It was completely free to make! You cold really use this to make lots of different things like a 'plate' to put keys on, wall art, storage box for stationary... your only limit is your imagination!

For this cool kids craft, you will need...

* Lots of small twigs (wash them and let them dry over night)
* Glue
* Ribbon
* Empty toilet paper tube, wrapping paper tube or whatever you plan to use to give your creation shape.

***If you use a plastic container, the glue will not stick very well so you should wrap it in construction paper and tape it somewhere where the tape won't show!

Lay the object to be decorated on a table with the side you want to start on facing upwards. Hold a twig up to the object and check the length. Break or cut all of the twigs to roughly the same size leaving the twigs about 1/2inch longer than the object. They should be slightly different in size to give it a more natural appearance!

Coat the object with glue and gently lay the twigs on the glue. They will slide around a lot so it is best to do small areas at a time allowing them to dry before starting on the next area.

Once you have completely covered the object in twigs, wrap a ribbon around -especially if it is an object like a pencil cup where the twigs must stand up- the ribbon will help keep them from falling off later!

If you have lots of wiggly twigs and think they might fall off, try ripping a thin strip of duct tape and wrap it securely around the center, covering the tape with ribbon afterwards!

A nice centerpiece can be very expensive OR it can be very cheap- even free! It really all depends upon what you are surrounded by. Where I live I do not really have access to lots of autumn leaves- I can get some fall leaves, but not many. There is an abundance of sticks and tall grass here- so I can get those for free and every now and then I have a sunflower in my yard (I planted a few from the pet rabbit's food in the hopes that we could grow him some treats) so I may be able to get one of those.

My flower garden sometimes has chrysanthemums, but the recent drought has pretty much killed all of my flowers. I do think that this year I want to use artificial flowers anyway because I made the centerpiece very early to write this article (mid october) and fresh flowers would die before Thanksgiving anyway.

Little bits of ribbon can be found in surprising places! When I was shopping for some cheap artificial flowers at the dollar store, I found a few bunches of fake flowers where the price tag was actually tied to the stems with brown ribbon! This could save some big money!

With artificial flowers you do not need to worry about the cost of buying oasis (floral arranging foam stuff that helps fresh flowers get their water), all you really need is something that you can stick the flowers into that will support them! This can be anything from an overturned food storage container with holes drilled in to a piece of styrofoam from the packaging in a recent purchase!

For this Autumn Craft you will need......

* Basket or wooden tub/box
* Flowers (fresh or artificial)
* Dry autumn leaves
* Brown, orange, gold or other earth tone Ribbon- sometimes better with glitter
* 3-5 Twigs
* Pliers with cutters or strong scissors

I found an old wooden tub like thing (from one of those bath gift baskets) and put a piece of packaging styrofoam in the center.

I held up my biggest flowers to it to get an idea about how tall I wanted it, then cute the stems with the cutters in my pliers (my scissors could not cut the artificial stems which have wire inside).

I cut the other flowers to similar lengths and then cut my twigs/ sticks to be slightly longer.

I arranged the artificial flowers in the styrofoam, filling it evenly- for every flower I put in, I put one as if it were a mirror image on the opposite side.

Take the dry leaves and insert them into gaps to fill in the arrangement - the real leaves will draw the eye to them, distracting from the "artificial" factor of the flowers a little bit. Add the sticks evenly through out, they should be poking out a tiny bit more than the flowers.

Cut the ribbon into equal 4 lengths about 8 inches long. Fold the ribbon into a gentle loop and insert both ends of the ribbon in the same place on the side. Repeat this three times on the other side- imagine that if you were looking straight down on it, the arrangement were a clock, add the ribbons at 3,6,9 and 12.

Cut 4 more pieces of ribbon to about 5 inches long and gently twist them into a curl. Insert one end of the ribbon 1/2 between the ribbon loops either 2 inches higher or 2 inches lower. Repeat this process the whole way around.

*** Please do NOT use candles in an arrangement like this unless they are flameless because dry leaves and twigs are a fire hazard! Keep the arrangement away from real candles.

Easy as Pie Apron by Moonlighter2011
See more Pie Aprons