Plan a day to craft Thankful Turkeys with your family. A little creativity combined with time reflecting on what you’re grateful for quickly transforms this adorable turkey into a festive and meaningful table decoration or place setting for Thanksgiving.
Supplies
- Cardboard (toilet paper) tubes, one per turkey
- Scissors
- Pencil
- Fall-colored construction paper (red, orange, yellow, tan, brown)
- Markers
- Stapler, glue, glue stick, glue dots or hot glue
- Optional: Googly eyes
Directions
- Using Image below for reference, make a symmetrical shape by temporarily flattening the tube and drawing half the turkey head—about 1" and the neck about 1/2".
- Following Image 1 and your drawing, cut the shape out (the back of the tube will be cut off at a height of 2”).
- Pop open the tube and fold the oval shape down to form the turkey head.
- Add eyes, a beak, and a snood (the red skin that hangs near a turkey’s beak).
- Cut out seven feathers in varying fall colors — pointed ovals that are about 4½” long x 1½” wide at the widest point. Our turkey has two red, two orange, two yellow and one brown.
- Write things you are thankful for on each feather. If you want your turkey to look like ours, write “Thankful for” on the brown feather and place it in the center, as pictured.
- Glue or tape the feathers to the back of the turkey so the messages/words are facing forward. Note: Make the lowest feathers flush with the table to give the turkey more stability.
Alyssa Navapanich is a nationally recognized art educator who teaches art to elementary school kids in East San Diego County. She is the author of San Diego Family Magazine’s “Art with Alyssa” column.
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