5 Thanksgiving Placemats Kids Can Make

Setting the table for Thanksgiving dinner requires a little more work than a normal family affair, and handmade placements help add the perfect mix of creativity and festivity to the meal. Most children love to help their parents prepare for special events, and having them make Thanksgiving-themed placements are one way they are able to contribute to the holiday dinner. Kids will enjoy doing these Thanksgiving-themed projects, and dinner guests will appreciate the personal touch that the handmade decorations will add.

Here are 5 Thanksgiving placemats kids can make. The amount of help your child will need will depend on his age and skill set.

1. Pressed leaf placemat- Gather up a variety of fallen leaves. Make sure that the leaves are ‘fresh’ and not dried and crunchy. Preheat your iron to low heat with no steam. Cut a piece of wax paper into your desired placemat size and place it on an ironing board. Let the kids place some leaves in a pleasing design on the wax paper. You can also print out a prayer, poem, or thankful thoughts and lay them on the waxed paper with the leaves. Everything needs to be as thin as possible, so don’t overlap the leaves or paper. Place a similar sized piece of waxed paper on top and then start ironing. The wax papers will fuse together from the heat of the iron. Once everything is fused together you’ll need to trim the edges. The edges can remain clear to let the table cloth show through, or you can glue the mats onto construction paper to give them a little more color and stability.
2. Hand-shaped turkey print placemats. Start by dipping your child’s hand into tempera paint or painting her hand, then place it on a 12×18 piece of construction paper to get a good handprint on the paper. Allow the handprint to dry. Once dried she can draw legs and add a beak and wattle to transform her handprint into a turkey. Have the kids draw leaves around the turkey and write their name underneath. The placemat can be finished at this point or it can be laminated.
3. A woven placemat. Take a large rectangular piece of construction paper and fold it in half. Make evenly spaced cuts in the paper, starting at the folded edge and stopping 1 inch from the free edge. Open the paper. Cut strips of various fall colored papers in whatever width you’d like, but making sure that they are the same length as the paper. Have the kids weave the strips over and under the slits in the paper, alternating the over and under on each strip so that the weave is even. Glue the ends of the strips to the paper to ensure they don’t come out. Laminate the placemat if you’d like.
4. Golf ball art placemats. Find a shirt box or large box lid to use for this project. You will also need several golf balls, tempera paint, and paper. Cut the paper to the size you’d like the placemat to be, but make sure it is smaller than the box or lid. Then put the paper in the bottom of the box. Squirt a little paint on the paper in various fall colors; it won’t take a lot of paint to obtain the desired effect. Have the kids drop the golf balls into the box or lid and start tipping and rolling them around. The golf balls will roll through the paint and create a cool design. Allow the paint to dry completely. If you’d like, you can sandwich the artwork between two layers of clear contact paper to protect the picture.
5. Felt placemat with leaves. Cut a 12 inch x 18 inch piece of fall colored felt. Attach self-adhesive foam leaf stickers to the felt. To finish off the edges of the placemat, hot glue some fall themed ribbon around the perimeter.

With a few supplies and a lot of creativity, kids can create Thanksgiving themed placements that will be the perfect addition to their family’s holiday dinner table.

Taken From Babysitting Jobs