Thanksgiving Writing Tray

For Thanksgiving, we created a writing tray with an irresistible material for our kids to practice their fine motor skills through relaxing sensory play!

This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Writing trays are the perfect sensory and fine motor invitation for children to explore mark making. Before a child even picks up a writing utensil they can practice making forms and eventually letters.

Once she explored the tactile experience for a bit I made a turkey leg out of pipe cleaners. She loved stamping turkey track footprints in our writing tray!

Have you seen how Fun-a-Day! painted with turkey tracks?

When stamping these tracks, you get a reluctant writer to hold a pencil-like instrument without ever knowing they are working on the correct grasp.

During my work and discussion with our preschooler I realized what our toddler was doing. Did you notice a few pictures up that he was threading pony beads onto our chopsticks? Even when he was using the chopstick to write it still had a bead on it!

He found his own motivating fine motor work in the materials we provided for exploration. I will be brainstorming how I can replicate this idea in several ways for him in the future.

Both kids loved sprinkling the cornmeal through their fingers. Cornmeal is a fantastic taste safe alternative to sand for sensory play!

Browse all of our Thanksgiving Ideas for Kids!

With designs and beads we created a kid zen garden that we will be getting out again even when the holiday is over. The colors and textures are beautiful no matter the season!