Happy Thanksgiving families! Tis the season for filling our bellies with some delicious foods! Here are some fun Thanksgiving themed treats for families to explore familiar foods in different, fun ways together!

 

Turkey Quesadillas

You can invite your child to help! They can…

• Help take each tortilla out of the bag
• Use a child safe knife to cut the quesadilla into pieces for the feathers
• Count raisins (optional)
• Use a cookie cutter to make the body, cheese legs and nose
• Sprinkle the cheese
• Help place tortillas on the pan

Ingredients:

• Tortillas
• Shredded cheese
• Sliced cheese
• Raisins

Directions:

• On one tortilla add shredded cheese on top
• Place another tortilla on the tortilla with shredded cheese
• Place in frying pan and cook on low-medium heat till cheese is melted
• Make 2 quesadillas (one for body and one for feathers)
• Once cooled, cut a smaller circle out of one cooked quesadilla
• Slice the other quesadilla in half and then in triangles for the feathers
• Add raisins for decoration 
• Add a small triangle and 2 rectangles cut from sliced cheese for the nose and legs

 

Turkey Sammies

You can invite your child to help! They can…

• Use a cookie cutter to make the body
• Help use an apple cutter
• Place the apple pieces in a shape of the feathers
• Use a cookie cutter to make the nose and legs
• Add their own ingredients to the sandwich

Ingredients:

• 2 slices of bread
• Sandwich ingredients that are appropriate for your family
• Apples 
• Carrot or slice cheese for nose and legs

Directions:

• Between 2 slices of bread, make a sandwich of your choice
• Cut  the sandwich into a circle for the body
• Cut apples into slices and place them in a half circle around the sandwich
• Cut a triangle and two rectangles from a slice of cheese or carrot

 

Goldfish Cornucopia 

You can invite your child to help! They can…

• Place the goldfish inside the cone
• Gather all ingredients
• Decide which type of goldfish they prefer

Ingredients:

• Goldfish (assortment of your choosing)
• Ice cream waffle cone

Directions:

• Fill an ice cream waffle cone with a goldfish assortment

 

Pilgrim Hats

You can invite your child to help! They can…

• Unwrap the candies
• Place the dollop of frosting on the cookie
• Put the Reese’s Cup on top of the cookie

Ingredients:

• Fudge stripe cookies
• Reeses peanut butter cups
• Frosting 

Directions:

• Unwrap Reese’s peanut butter cups
• Place a small dollop of frosting in the center of the cookie
• Place the peanut butter cup on top of the frosting and cookie
• Let dry

Substitutions:

• Instead of fudge stripe cookies, you can use a cracker 
• Instead of Reese’s Cups, you can use a Hershey’s Kiss or a piece from a cheese stick to compliment the cracker

 

Acorns

You can invite your child to help! They can…

• Help cut or break the cookies and pretzels
• Help stir the melted chocolate
• Put the pieces together to create the acorn

Ingredients:

• Pretzel rods
• Chocolate to melt
• Nutter butter or crackers

Directions:

• Cut or break the pretzel rod into pieces
• Cut or break the nutter butter in half
• Melt the chocolate
• Dip the cut end of the nutter butter into the melted chocolate
• Place a piece of pretzel into the middle of the cookie edge

Substitutions:

• Instead of nutter butter cookies, you can substitute with Ritz crackers or any familiar crackers in a similar shape

 

We can continue to practice responsive feeding during the holidays! Inviting your child to help with making these fun thanksgiving treats will provide more opportunities to explore foods (some may be familiar and some may be unfamiliar/new to them). Exploring foods with a parent provides more fun, positive mealtime experiences with food and children can feel safe exploring them with a parent. Creating moments to give thanks and enjoy turkey themed treats together can help build trust in the parent-child relationship. 

 

Written by: Nicole Bing, OTD-S