Thankfulness Turkey

We love to do crafts with all of the cousins when we get together for Thanksgiving. Each year I go on a quest to try and find new and exciting crafts.  Sometimes it is tricky to get one that works for all ages, as we currently have a wide range, from preschool to almost middle school.  I am happy to report that this next craft I'm going to show you was a BIG hit with everyone.  It was a "Thankfulness Turkey". 

Besides awesome food and chillaxing with family, we also like to focus on the meaning of thanksgiving, and help the kids really think about even the little things they can be so thankful for.  

Okay for this project you will need:

Brads/brass fasteners   
Brown + yellow construction paper or white cardstock with brown crayons/markers
Paint swatches in a variety of colors
Googly eyes

Also on hand you should have:

Pencils
Scissors
Thin sharpies (for writing in small spaces)
A round object or bowl for tracing
Hole punch
Glue

By the way we got this fabulous idea from the website Preschool Alphabet.  

First you want to make the body of your turkey.  You can use brown construction paper, or like we did, trace a round circle on a piece of white card stock (sturdier) and have the kids color them what ever shade of brown they think their turkey might be.  We used a small lid or bowl to get the perfect circle shape.

Add a small mark for the future hole.  It should not be dead center, but slightly towards one side

Once they have colored it brown, have them cut it out and punch a hole in it slightly off center.

Next, before the big day go around and collect some colorful paint swatches from Lowes, Home Depot, or Walmart.  I tried to find the colors of the rainbow plus a few extras.  These will make the feathers.  Round out the ends with a pair of scissors to make them more "feather" like.

Try to find tall swatches to maximize your turkey feather length

 
You will have to measure these up against your "turkey body" to find the right placement for the holes.  I prepped the feathers with a mock up turkey before hand and had all the holes punched in the paint swatches so we could be ready for our craft quickly.  This is where we are going to put what we are thankful for.  Hand out to each child all the colored feathers.

I had a sample of what their finished turkey would look like so they could see that they should probably write their thankful things in the top three or four spaces, as the lower parts of the paint swatches would be covered with the turkey body.

With thin sharpies, have them write on each feather things they are thankful for.  If they are too little to write, they can draw small pictures.  For our youngest ones, we had them tell us what they were thankful for and we would write the words for them.  Also at this time you can glue on some googly eyes above the hole of the turkey body, and a small yellow or orange triangle beak if you wish.  Or like Gabe here, stick the biggest googly eyes on your head.

After that it is just a matter of putting your cute turkey of thankfulness together.  Slip a brass brad through the top of the turkey body, and through all the holes in your turkey feathers and secure.  Fan out your feathers and you've got yourself one adorable turkey!

I thought it was pretty cool that the length of our turkey feathers were just long enough to poke out the bottom end of our turkey body, giving it a nice full turkey "look".

These were so bright and colorful.  We all LOVED making them.

Here is a whole FLOCK of turkeys.  GOBBLE GOBBLE

After dinner we all sat around and each child shared what they were thankful for.

Overall this turned out to be a fabulous and colorful craft that was not only FUN, but was able to drive home the atmosphere of thankfulness, how not to take anything for granted, and to help these little ones learn how to count their blessings.