Kid Friendly Thanksgiving Place Settings

We have wonderful neighbors.  They're French and she loves to cook.  Every Thanksgiving they invite us over for an amazing 5 course meal.  It's the best thing ever because the food is astounding, you can't beat the commute, and we even get a plate of leftovers without the clean up.  In true holiday fashion, it's an all afternoon affair so it's a bit hard on the kids - lots of adults talking with not much to do.  Two years ago I started making their table a workspace after being inspired by an article in Southern Living.  

Image Source:  Southern Living November 2010

The kids were put at their own table anyway so I went over the night before to set their table.  I covered the table in paper and then traced and labeled all their dishes and put a menu checklist like in the picture above.  The first year it was all in English and I was hoping it'd help a bit with the what dish do you use when problem.  They got a pile of pens to draw anywhere on the table they wanted when they were bored.

 Last year I did the same thing but labeled everything on the table in french.  The dishes, the menu, and a few phrases such as "J'en veux encore un peu." et "Comme c'est bon!".

This year, I'm labeling the table in French with last year's ideas, but I've also made up a leaf book for each of them to write in.  Older Toad's is labeled 'I am Thankful' and we'll encourage him to think about the holiday and hopefully be grateful for such nice neighbors.  Younger Toad gets some Thanksgiving stickers for his.  The leaf shapes were a freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers.  I formatted them to the right size, printed them out, cut and bound them.  The kids will get markers again too.

I thought it was a fun idea.  The kids have enjoyed it and obviously you could take the basic idea and do lots of different things with it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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