Great Thanksgiving Apps for Families and Kids
Few holidays can bring family and friends together for a day of fun and feasting better than Thanksgiving. Whether you’re sharing a home-cooked meal with loved ones or helping feed those less fortunate, Thanksgiving is one of the most family-oriented days on the calendar. Here are some of the very best apps to get you and the rest of the family in a Thanksgiving spirit. They’re all free, so take a moment and download an app – or three!
Thanksgiving App
Available at: Apple App Store, Google Play
The aptly-named Thanksgiving App is the most comprehensive app for all things Thanksgiving. Whether you’re a history buff who wants to know more about the origins of the holiday, or you’re looking for tips on how to cook the perfect turkey, this is the app for you. It includes a trivia game that teaches you more than you ever thought possible about how Thanksgiving is celebrated in the U.S. and around the world, as well as Thanksgiving greeting cards that you can share with family and friends. There’s even a timer that counts the days, hours, and minutes until Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Coloring Book
Available at: Apple App Store
A great app for use at the kids’ table is the Thanksgiving Coloring Book. This app has an awesome selection of coloring pages. Kids can use the built-in paint bucket to fill in spaces with more than 60 colors or finger paint on their own for increased creativity. To clear an image, shake the phone and start over. Kids can save their images to share with family and friends during Thanksgiving dinner, leading to some great conversations.
Thankgsiving Puzzles
Available at: Apple App Store
Thanksgiving Puzzles is a great gaming app. Featuring several animated puzzles of increasing difficulty, this app is filled with the things that we’ve come to associate with Thanksgiving – turkey, fixings, and pumpkin pie. At the end of each puzzle, fun fall visuals like fireworks that burst into colorful autumn leaves are sure to amaze the kids.
Thankgsiving Day Photo Editor
Available at: Apple App Store
Whether you’re inviting family and friends over for dinner or you’re guests at someone else’s feast, Thanksgiving Day Photo Editor is a wonderful tool to create and share greeting cards. Choose from various pre-designed cards or design your own cards by decorating the greeting cards with stickers and inserting photos of family and friends.
Apps that Give Back
Givio
Available at: Apple App Store, Google Play
Thanksgiving is about so much more than celebrating together with family and friends and expressing our gratitude; it’s also about sharing with those less fortunate. Teach the kids the important lesson of generosity by downloading Givio – a charitable app – and have them add some of their allowance as a donation to a charitable organization of their choice. You can share your name and contact information or choose to stay totally anonymous.
RoundUp
Available at: Apple App Store
Another way to show generosity to those in need is to round up all the purchases you normally make and to designate the extra money to one or more charities. The app for that is called RoundUp. You can also supplement your “round-ups” with one-time or monthly donations, perhaps for some extra giving around the holidays. Have the app open and ready next time you go shopping with the kids, and include them in deciding how much to round up to your family’s charity of choice.
Share the Meal
Available at: Amazon Apps, Apple App Store, Google Play
The charity app that arguably best captures the spirit of Thanksgiving is ShareTheMeal, created by the United Nations World Food Program. By contributing to this app, you’ll donate directly to the United Nations World Food Program, which helps feed millions of families around the world. This is a great way to teach the kids that not all children are as lucky as they are.
– Tanni Haas, Ph.D.
