I am excited to bring you our Montessori Thanksgiving Trays today. These simple and fun ideas can provide fun and educational learning opportunities for your child.

I don’t think Thanksgiving gets enough credit!! I am a strong believer in not bringing out any Christmas activities until the day after Thanksgiving. No matter what retail and the stores do, we will focus on our great country and its roots and being thankful for family and health!! We came to this land to prosper and be free. We will be learning a truthful history of our country as our homeschooling progresses, its democracy and capitalistic ideals, along with the plight of the Native Americans, with our children. I don’t think that children are ever too young to learn about these vital foundations.

We love to have fun with what this Thanksgiving season has to offer! We took a quick trip to Michael’s and spent about $10 and created some VERY SIMPLE trays. Turkeys, cranberries, fallen leaves, welcoming winter, and of course, baking and eating pumpkin pie. I collected 30+ Montessori Thanksgiving Activities from some wonderful Kid Blogger Network mamas in a previous post, so I hope you check that out. I created these activities to encourage Montessori learning and independent life skills. Each activity focuses on the Montessori learning categories: Language, Practical Life, Mathematics, Sensorial, and Art.

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Practical Life

We use this wooden tray (we found at Michael’s cheaper)! Simple transferring tray with cranberries. We used tongs, but could also use a spoon or strainer out of water. These cranberries did turn into fun sensory play at the end, when we put them together with a big bowl of water. We will definitely try some of Lalymom’s Fine Motor Games with Cranberries.

And here is a leaf clothespin color matching tray. I found these fall/Thanksgiving themed felt leaf clothespins at Michael’s and laminated simple color cards. You could make your own little clothespins with felt, too. Another fine motor tray. Making a Thanksgiving necklace. This kit was bought at Michael’s, also, and surprisingly, it was a huge hit with John! He wore the necklace as a belt, which I just loved.

Mathematics

Simple counting tray with some cute felt turkey stickers, again, found at Michael’s. Our sandpaper number cards have been a huge help for my son. John worked with this tray for almost 20 minutes — it was amazing!! He picked a number out, put it in the tray, then counted his turkeys! He also made stories about the turkeys, too. For example, this “baby turkey” is 2 years old!

Language

Another Michael’s idea. This pack had already cut leaves, and stickers you can place on them to hang up in your kitchen! I didn’t know how John would feel about this tray, but once again, he loved it! He put ever letter on its felt leaf, naming the letter, oh he was so proud!

This second activity includes a free printable at Thanksgiving Letter Sort. It is a simple Thanksgiving letter match. I put our (from Michael’s) wooden letters in a bowl next to some laminated words related to Thanksgiving for my son to match the letters!

Art

We made some turkeys with our play group this week. Not quite Montessori inspired, but it did involve using glue, creating ones own turkey and adding googly eyes and colorful feathers. I presented John’s to him on a tray later since he didn’t want to do it at playgroup :)