Thanksgiving Day Turkey

So tomorrow I’m hosting the craft show at work for the first time. I’ve never done anything like that before, but I’m really excited! For the craft show I had to come up with a craft that goes with the holiday we’ll be celebrating in a few days (Thanksgiving :D). So I spent a very long time looking through Pinterest to find a great activity that I could do. Long story short, I wasn’t able to find an activity that met all my needs (since I needed to have materials in bulk and could easily be done with kids of all ages). Which led me to creating my own craft from inspirations I saw on Pinterest.

Since it took me a couple of experiments to get the craft right, I don’t have a step-by-step guide, just a picture of the finished product. If you want a step-by-step, let me know in the comments below. Otherwise, this is what the craft looks like!

Cute, right? Let’s get started!

What you will need for the project are markers, googlie eyes, half of a tongue depressor (I found sharp scissors do the job of cutting, just be careful), a coffee filter, glue, syringe, water and construction paper in the colors of red and yellow. First cut out your beak, legs, and the red wattle. Here’s the template that I created if you want to use it: Turkey Craft Template

Next color your tongue depressor brown (if you want). Then glue the wattle to the tongue depressor, and the beak on top of that. Take the legs and fold them accordion style and glue the top the bottom of your tongue depressor. Finally glue the eyes on.

Fold the coffee filter in half and using markers draw lines from the middle of the coffee filter out to the edges. Draw as much as you like, for the more color, the more it will blend. Next glue the tongue depressor right in the middle of the coffee filter. Finally, drip water from the syringe onto the coffee filter to blend the colors. Let dry and you have your turkey.

If you want, put a little loop of string or ribbon on the top and you can hang your little turkey! What I like about this activity is I was able to sneak some medical play into the activity while keeping to the holiday theme. For my fellow child life specialists, this is a great chance to process with kids about their thoughts and feelings concerning syringes or general medical experiences!

Thanksgiving Day Turkey Activity Notes

Ages: 4 and up (you may need to help the younger kids with cutting and pasting the small pieces)

Materials Needed: Paper, tongue depressor, markers, glue, water, syringe, coffee filter and googlie eyes.

Therapeutic Value:
Legacy Building
Small  motor control
Creativity
Medical Play
Normalization