Thanksgiving fun for little ones; Activities from Ebenezer Child Care Centers

All right, welcome back to Room of Walk, everyone. We know so many families want to make those memories right around the holidays, and sometimes finding the perfect activity is kind of like the hardest part at all. That's right. Sarah Rushford is here from Ebenezer Child Care Centers with some simple ways to celebrate Thanksgiving with your kids. This looks like so much fun, and we're learning a little bit, too. Absolutely. So don't we want to have the kids disconnect? Like at Thanksgiving, you have the party, and all the kids are on the couch on phones and stuff, right? So this is a great way, not only for kids, but us as adults. There we go. Hey guys, so if you're having a small gathering or big gathering, this is a great way to kind of engage and have fun with the holidays. So the first thing we're going to talk about is this really awesome book called... Turkey Trouble. Okay, this is really fantastic. It goes with the craft that I'm going to have you guys working on. I have two samples for viewers at home to see as well. Basically, this book is fantastic. The little turkey in the barnyard realizes its time is up. It's Thanksgiving. So the whole story is the turkey goes from barn to barn, disguising itself as a horse, as a cow, as a rooster, as a pig, but all the barnyard animals call it out. And it's like, no, you're They're not, and then it's like, okay, I'm going to do it. But, you know, so then finally the wife, you know, the farmer's like, where's the turkey, honey? And he goes, I can't find it. And she goes, well, the rooster's out there. And the last character, it dressed up as a rooster. And he goes, oh, no. So the turkey has a great idea. It's going to dress up as a pizza delivery guy and orders a pizza and delivers it. And they have that instead of turkey for Thanksgiving. So he got out of trouble. Oh, that's cute. So the idea is this craft that you see here is disguise a turkey. Viewers, you can get these on home. There's free templates at home that you can... You can print off and have a really cool little, you can read the book at Thanksgiving and then maybe have a station for the kids to create, disguise a turkey. And they can get creative. If you have like remnant crafts and things, you can do that. We have templates for you guys that you can, you know, put on there. And then the idea is the kids to talk about what they disguised their turkey. Now this is great because I also feel like this is when you have like your cousins over. Oh, absolutely. So it's a good craft that they can all do together. Yeah, and it's a hilarious book, really great colorful graphics, illustrations in the book, so it's a good laugh, and then it'll be fun to see what the kids actually come up with to disguise their turkeys, and then they can go and showcase everybody, maybe at dinner, after dinner, show everybody what they came up with. As we're doing this, if you don't mind, I just want to show what we're coloring on, because in all of my mommy years, I've never done this, and I think it's wonderful. We're coloring on a paper plate. No, because that, no, I. I think it's genius, because this way, if I colored out of the lines or something, I didn't get it on the table, I didn't get it on the tablecloth. Truth to be told, Erika, you guys are going to be using a glue stick to affix your thing on there, and I thought, well, you know when you're using a glue stick, it gets all over, so I thought, hey, the paper plate would be a great idea, right? And then you could throw it out, and there's no mess. Perfect. And then I could get a little bit out of the line, and I don't feel so bad. Exactly. Exactly. And nobody will know. Yes. Now, along with Disguise of Turkey is, you guys may have noticed these fun little balloon creations. There is another book that you can introduce to your Halloween, or Halloween, oh my gosh, I was just here for Halloween, your Thanksgiving party. is how, it's called Balloons Over Broadway. This is a true story about how, you know, the big Macy's Thanksgiving Balloons came about. It's all about this gentleman. It's really easy read, really fun illustrations to teach the kids all about this gentleman, Tony, who was an immigrant who came here. He was a marionette builder and had shows, and Macy's hired him to create a display in their store, and it led to him creating We're creating the big balloons that we see today. As an adult, I feel like I want to read this, too, because every year, my brother calls me, come on, come on, you know? And look at this, like, in the middle of the book, they have, like, see these beautiful, fun illustrations to teach that. Oh, sweet, Sarah. Now, to extend that, you guys, you're going to make your own Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloons. That seems complicated, Sarah. It's not. You get some balloons. We have, look at it, we got construction paper. We have little googly eyes. We had some leftover sticky, like, eyes and stuff like that. And packing tape, we use glue dots. You can just find whatever. Have the kids come up with whatever creations they want. I love that. And even the adults, right, get involved in it. And you can either have them as a display on your tables. Now, I would say that maybe floral foam could be another way to fix and keep them in place. But the idea is later on, maybe after dinner, have your own balloon parade. And have everybody go around and show the guests who didn't participate their balloons as their creations. I like this. And the kids can take them home as a giveaway. It's a little souvenir. A little souvenir of Thanksgiving. I love the glasses on there. I know, right? Well, speaking of creation, let's get to the food. Oh, my gosh, you guys. What is this? We have this book, The Very Stuffed Turkey. You guys may understand. You've been invited to five Thanksgivings. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're trying to figure out. Well, Turkey says, I'm going to all of them. He stuffs himself so full when they go do their own parade, he actually falls over and falls asleep and wakes up and says, I'm sorry, guys, it was just all the food was fantastic. We can all relate to that. The itis. Yes. So you guys, we have here an idea for you to have the. Kids, the adults have cooked all day in the kitchen, have the kids make dessert. This is pumpkin pie in a cup, no bake. All it is is you take graham crackers, put them in a bag, kids mush it up. Okay. Right? And then we'll take vanilla pudding and pumpkin pie filling. Oh, so that's what you kind of mix together. And you mix it together. You can add some spice. You layer it in the cup. And now, Derek, you guys are going to add your whipped cream when it's time to serve. Whipped cream. And then we can sprinkle some cinnamon on it. There we go. Okay. This party can go on and on. I'm starting to speak now. They didn't catch it. It's about to get wild. It's about to get wild. I want to be in it. This is the adult world. We'll just put that one aside. Oh, my God. No, but this is so fun. And I feel like they're contributing. Absolutely. And it's super easy, and every age can get involved in making this, to be honest. So it's a really great way to involve everybody and have a really good, memorable Thanksgiving. Oh, Sarah, this is cool. Cool, well, a few things. Let's see before we go. Yeah. Oh, what did you guys come up with? What did you do this, guys? Oh, what do you have going on? Look at his red lips. Oh, look at that. This is fun. Thank you. Yes, you're very welcome. And great books, too. Where can we find this one? Oh, yeah. These are all on Amazon, you guys. Perfect. Okay. And then I encourage viewers to go to ebenezerchildcare.com. We are enrolling and we are hiring. So check out everything that we have. You're going to see this in centers as well. Sure, thanks. You're very welcome. You're always so much fun. Back to the whipped cream party. Oh, yeah. All right. We'll be right back. Ha ha ha ha ha! And you guys feel free to take those if you want.