5 Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids and Mommy, Too!

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The Thankful Turkey

This year I wanted to start teaching my kiddos about being thankful and what they should (hopefully) be thankful for, so I thought this little turkey craft would be easy to do for a 4 and 2 year old. We started the turkey on November 1st and our goal was to add a feather everyday listing something the kids are thankful for until Thanksgiving Day. We have fallen a little short on that goal, but we do have a few up on both of their turkey’s. My 4 year old is catching on nicely! He started with playing outside and has finally started saying his family, friends and house.

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Here is what you need: colored construction paper, googly eyes or buttons, glue and a marker. First, I cut out a big oval for the body of the turkey and then a smaller circle of the head. We glued those to a piece of construction paper (we chose black). We added buttons for eyes and an orange triangle for the beak and two feet. I wrote in the middle of each turkey their name and is thankful for… Then I cut out a bunch of feathers and put them in a baggie so they would be ready to add what they are thankful for to them and glue them to the turkeys. Then, we talked about what we could be thankful for. My 4 year old chose, playing outside and my 2 year old daughter chose, Mommy (SCORE!). I wrote them on a feather and they glued them to the turkey.

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The Name Matching Turkey

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I had sick kids this past week so this was a easy activity to keep them busy for a little while since they couldn’t go to school. On the body of the turkeys I spelled out each of their names and on a third turkey I spelled out “Thanksgiving.” Then I cut out feathers and I wrote out their names and the word Thanksgiving. They had to match the letter on the feather to the letter on the body of the turkey. After they matched the letters we glued the feathers on and added eyes and a beak. My son got creative with his name turkey and added some red feathers. Later, I made him do the Thanksgiving turkey. You could make them match upper and lower case letters, too. I also thought this could be a fun activity for the night before or morning of Thanksgiving. The kids could do this while all the cooking was taking place and then they could glue the whole turkey to a larger piece of paper and it could be turned into their placemats for their Thanksgiving meal.

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Turkey Frame

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I had taken some really cute pictures at the St. Mark’s Pumpkin Patch of my son when his class went and then we took some family pictures at a pumpkin patch in San Antonio while visiting my sister-in-law and her family and I wanted to use some of them for something! So I saw this super cute turkey frame somewhere and thought this would be perfect for their pictures. I bought 2 frames at the Dollar Tree and let the kids decorate it with sparkly glue, googly eyes and a beak. After, they dried, we put their pictures in and then they helped me hot glue the feathers on. And that was it! Super cute keep sake for over the years of your little turkey(s)or a cute gift for the Grandparents!

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Turkey Snack Bag

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At Halloween my son came home with a plastic Lunch Lady glove filled with candy corn and popcorn and I thought it was so cute! After talking to a friend about ideas for this blog post she sent me a picture of a plastic Lunch Lady glove filled with Rainbow Goldfish Crackers and Popcorn that looked like a turkey. So CUTE! I found the plastic gloves at our Dollar Tree in Weslaco in the aisle by napkins, paper plates and gloves for washing dishes. I grabbed a bag of Rainbow Goldfish from HEB and I had some little bags of popcorn from the Halloween sale at Target. First, I poured the Rainbow Goldfish into the fingers of the glove and then I filled the body up with popcorn and tied it with a twist tie. Then I glued on googly eyes and made little beaks for the turkey. The kids loved them! Especially, because I would not normally buy the Rainbow Goldfish because of all the dye. This would be cute for a snack at school or for a class or even a teacher gift for Thanksgiving (I would have enjoyed this as a snack when I was teaching ;)). I might make these again for our car ride to Houston and to the Ranch for Thanksgiving.

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Turkey Painted Wine Bottles

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And this one is a craft for the Momma’s or Momma’s and kids to do together. I had a few empty wine bottles sitting around in my laundry room (Oh, who am I kidding… I counted 11!) so I thought it would be cute to paint these for Thanksgiving. I originally wanted to paint them orange and paint the word “Give” on one and the word, “Thanks” on the other, but I didn’t think I could paint the letters on as nicely as I wanted so I used my son’s little hands to make turkeys on mine. First, I soaked the bottles in hot water with a mixture of dish soap, baking soda and vinegar to get the wine labels off. I let them soak for over an hour and then I was able to easily scrap the labels off. I let the bottles dry over night. Then, I painted the bottles orange with acrylic paint. I had to do 3 coats to make sure they were fully covered. I bet there is a better type of paint to use for painting on glass, but I wanted to use what I had at home. Once the orange was dry I got out brown, red, green and yellow paint to paint my son’s hand to make the turkeys. I painted his palm and thumb brown and then each of his fingers a different color for the feathers. He LOVES having his hands and feet painted so he thought he was big stuff helping me with my project. I went back over the turkey with the paints to fill in any holes and added a beak, eye, legs and feet. After the bottles dried I sprayed the bottles with my Super-Shine Modge Podge outside. It is pretty potent so I would suggest doing this outside or in a well ventilated area.  Now, you have super cute center pieces for your Thanksgiving table or a gift to take to the Grandparents!

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I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with lots of family, friends, love, turkey and pumpkin pie!

Gobble Gobble!

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