Thanksgiving Recipes for Play

We've been gearing up for Thanksgiving around here and enjoying a lot of Thanksgiving sensory play. Children learn best when multiple senses are stimulated. Since my boys are young, ages 6, 4, and 2 year old twins, we do most of our learning through play. The two materials my kids request regularly are paint and dough, so over the past two weeks I have had fun creating Thanksgiving inspired paint and dough.

Here are our five favorite ideas for Thanksgiving sensory play:

1. Lemon Meringue Pie Dough

Lemon meringue is my favorite pie. Since we love making doughs for sensory play I thought it would be fitting to make a lemon meringue pie in anticipation of Thanksgiving dinner. This sensory dough recipe is perfect for imaginative play.

2. Turkey Absorption Art

Absorption art is one of my favorite techniques for kids' art. It's so exciting watching the watercolors pull through the artwork. To make this a sensory experience I added different scents to each paint color. Each scent reminded me of Thanksgiving dinner.

3. Cranberry Dough

This two ingredient dough recipe is edible and safe for kids of all ages. It is easy to make and smells incredible. Be sure and read the post to find out what we turned our dough into when we were done playing, creating a whole new sensory material!

4. Thanksgiving Sensory Paints

This paint recipe calls for common pantry items and only takes a few minutes to whip up. We made sage green, pumpkin pie orange, clove brown, lemon yellow, and cranberry red.