Intro:
This turkey-rific activity is a delight that children can enjoy again and again! In addition
to creating a treat of a Thanksgiving turkey, children will build motor skills and practice
creative and critical thinking skills.
Set Up Ideas:
Have a healthy assortment of feathers for the children to use. Try feathers in natural
colors along with all colors of the rainbow for a variety of colorful turkeys.
Let’s Get Started:
For these terrific turkeys, you'll need to gather the following materials: two foam sheets,
construction paper, eyes, clothespins, feathers and a glue pen.
Tips and Tricks:
If you don't have real feathers on hand, you may wish to cut construction paper into long
feather-like shapes and cut small slits in them to represent feathers.
Follow up Activity:
The best part about this craft is that you have a fun activity ready at the end! Have
children practice pinning tails on the turkeys. For older children, you may up the
challenge by using a blindfold.
Children may be interested to know Benjamin Franklin, one of our country's founders,
once said that the turkey would be a much more respectable bird to represent our
country. Some of his reasons were that turkeys are very courageous, and they are true
native birds of America.
Steps:
- Cut one large circle and one small circle from brown foam sheets. The large circle will be
the body and the small circle will be the head. - Cut an orange beak and a red waddle from construction paper. Glue these onto the
turkey’s head and glue wiggly eyes to the head. - Gather seven feathers in different colors and glue each feather to a clothespin.
- Use the clothespins to clip the tail feathers onto the turkey. This can turn into quite a fun
Thanksgiving game!