Thanksgiving Art Projects for Kids: Gratitude Tree, Thankful Turkey

Are you looking for some fun Thanksgiving art projects to encourage thankfulness in your students? Here are some fun Thanksgiving art ideas!

A collage of three Thanksgiving art projects: a gratitude tree, colorful autumn leaves, and a turkey labeled with things to be thankful for, captioned "Thanksgiving Art Ideas.

Plus, keep reading down to the very bottom for some of my favorite suggestions for books to encourage gratitude.

Any of these projects you can take these ideas and do on your own! To make it easier, I have made handouts and templates for some of these projects, which is available in my shop.

Thanksgiving Art Project #1: Thankful Turkeys

Three "Thankful Turkey" activity sheets featuring a colored turkey with gratitude notes, instructions for the craft, and a drawing guide—perfect Thanksgiving art projects for kids.

This Thankful Turkey art project is great for younger kids. First, draw a turkey! Give your students a drawing handout or a printout of turkey drawings for inspiration. Then, write things you are thankful for on the feathers. Finally, add color with colored pencils, crayons or watercolor paints.

A colorful turkey drawing listing things to be thankful for is next to the book "Taylor the Thankful Turkey," making it a perfect inspiration for Thanksgiving art projects featuring an illustrated turkey holding a sign.

The book pictured here is Taylor the Thankful Turkey, by Sonica Ellis (Amazon Affiliate link – commissions earned goes towards the expenses of running this blog and to purchase more books/art supplies). The book is a short and sweet story about a turkey who shows his thankfulness to all his neighbors.

If you are interested in grabbing turkey drawing handouts, templates and directed drawing slideshow, you can get the Thankful Turkey art project package here.

Gratitude Art Activity #2: Thankful Tree Craft

This cut and paste craft is perfect for the early elementary grades. Print out a tree trunk template. Color with crayons. Cut out paper leaves and write things you are thankful for on the leaves. Glue the leaves on to the tree. I have templates and directions in this Thankful Tree Craft project.

A children's book titled "Friendsgiving" sits next to a Thanksgiving art project: a paper craft tree with colorful leaves, each labeled with things to be thankful for.

I found the PERFECT book to go along with this project. This book called Friendsgiving is soooo adorable. I love the little felted critters and it even has a thankful tree in the book! It was very serendipitous as I had already made my examples for the thankful tree art project and I was looking for a book to go along with the project and I came across this fabulous children’s book.

Check out some of the pages in this book. The first one shows the critters adding to their thankful tree.

Four stuffed animal characters decorate a Gratitude Tree with paper leaves and dance in a cozy room filled with autumn decorations, a record player, and Thanksgiving art projects.

An open children's book shows two stuffed animals at a table with plates of food, including vegetables, beans, pancakes, and chocolate cake—perfect for inspiring Thanksgiving Art Projects like a Gratitude Tree. Text appears at the top of the page.

Thankful Art Project #3: Gratitude Trees

Three colorful "Thankful Tree" art projects are displayed with art supplies and autumn leaves, next to text that reads "Thankful Tree Art Project," perfect inspiration for Thanksgiving art projects.

These Thankful Trees use the same concept as the previous craft, but students will draw their own trees and then write what they are thankful for on the branches or leaves. This is another one of my favorite Thanksgiving art projects for kids. This is open-ended and students can draw their trees in any style. Offer different art materials such as crayons, colored pencils, markers and watercolors. How to Draw a tree, Tree Drawing examples and templates are available in the Thankful Tree art project.

Thanksgiving Art Project #4: Fall Leaves Drawing

Drawing leaves is always a fun fall activity. You can take a walk outside and gather some colorful leaves for your drawing. You could also use these Leaf Drawing Guides to draw your leaves.

A colorful drawing of fall leaves on blue paper, surrounded by art supplies like crayons, colored pencils, and watercolor paints—perfect for Thanksgiving art projects—with the text "Fall Leaves Drawing" above.

How to make this artwork:

Draw your leaves with pencil.
Outline the leaves in Sharpie marker.
Color in the leaves with crayons- make color gradations or variations in shades of colors to make your leaves more interesting. (For example, in the picture above, I used magenta, orange and light orange to create rich colors in the leaf on the right side.)
You can use white crayons to draw spirals and swirls (it makes it look like it’s blowing in the breeze.)
Use watercolor paints to paint the background.

Fall Art Activity #5: Patterned Leaves Drawing

This is a fun leaf drawing project that can be done at any time of the year! Draw your leaves, add patterns and then color in with colored pencils or crayons. Grab handouts for this project in the Patterned Leaves package.

Two intricately patterned leaves—one with rainbow colors and one with blue and purple designs—are surrounded by art supplies like colored pencils, crayons, and watercolor paints, making them perfect for Thanksgiving art projects.

Children’s Books to Go Along with Thanksgiving Art Projects

I looked through some children’s books that are perfect to read before doing one of these projects.

These two are my favorites with the general theme of thankfulness.

Two children's books are shown: "An Awesome Book of Thanks!" by Dallas Clayton and "The Thankful Book" by Todd Parr—perfect for inspiring a Gratitude Tree or other Thanksgiving art projects with your little ones.

First is the book by Dallas Clayton called An Awesome Book of Thanks. This book is quirky and fun, with interesting illustrations. Here are a couple of the pages.

Illustrated page from a children's book shows a group of colorful, fuzzy creatures with the text, "TO MOMS AND DADS AND SISTERS AND BROTHERS," surrounded by a cheerful Thankful Turkey for Thanksgiving Art Projects.

Illustration of an underwater scene with a shark, jellyfish, stingray, fish, and plants. Reminiscent of Thanksgiving Art Projects, text reads: "AND THANK YOU THANK YOU OCEAN DEEP." A hand holds the page open.

The second book I really love is by Todd Parr, called The Thankful Book. I love his cute and colorful illustrations.

An illustrated children's book shows a child watering flowers in a garden with butterflies, while another child stands under the sun, inspired by Thanksgiving Art Projects like the Gratitude Tree.

A colorful illustrated book page shows a child painting a Thankful Turkey, with the text: "I am thankful for colors because they make me want to paint." Four paint buckets are below the drawing. Perfect for Thanksgiving Art Projects!.

Thankful Books for Kids

Here are more of my recommendations for children’s books that are great for teaching about gratitude! Have I missed any good ones? Let me know in the comments.

The Thankful Book, by Todd Parr
A Little Thankful Spot, by Diane Alber
Thankful, by Eileen Spinelli
Taylor the Thankful Turkey, by Sonica Ellis
Friendsgiving, by Nancy Siscoe
An Awesome Book of Thanks, by Dallas Clayton
The Gratitude Jar, by Katrina Liu

Here is one more book I discovered after I created that collage graphic! It is called Thankful and it is lovely. If you want your kids to make a Thankful paper chain, the girl in the book makes her own thankful paper chain.