Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids - ABC Turkeys
Use Thanksgiving crafts for kids to teach ABCs as well as art. This sponge painted ABC turkey is an easy Thanksgiving craft and the materials are usually already part of your classroom supplies.
To help students practice a few letters, rather than the whole alphabet, use only 3 or 4 letters and repeat the names of the letters as you work with the students. E.G. "Please pass the Y to Alex, he hasn't had a chance to use it yet." or "I like the bright orange color you used to make your Bs..."
Tip #1- Let the kids explore the ABC sponges first!
Any time you plan to use new materials with preschool and kindergarten students, allow them plenty of time to play with them before actually using them for a project.
Prior to making this Thanksgiving craft for kids, place some sponge letters and paint out in the art center. Use different colors than you plan to use for your turkey activity.
This will give the children time to squeeze and scrunch the letters, watch paint drip from them and smear paint around. Once they get this out of their system, you will get better results with your Thanksgiving art!
Tip #2 - Always do the art or craft yourself
The best way to be aware of the mistakes your students will make with any crafts for kids, is to create the project yourself before setting it out for the children. You will discover pitfalls such as forgetting to leave room to draw feet, putting too much or not enough paint on the sponge letters or pressing down too hard when stamping the letters and creating blobs of paint rather than letters.
Materials you'll need...
For construction:
- Background paper
- Construction paper for turkey body and head
- small triangle orange stickers or paper beaks
- Circle tracers for body and head
- Scissors, crayons for tracing and eyes
- Red circle stickers for turkey's head (see image)
- Optional - wheat kernels and white glue
- Thin rectangle of card stock to join head to body
For painting:
- Choose 3 or 4 letters from Alphabet Sponges
- Trays of creamy (not too thick) red, orange, yellow paint (refill often rather than filling too full)
- Paper towels
Making the ABC Turkeys
Children will....
- trace, cut, and glue a body circle to the center of their background paper
- trace and cut a head circle, then attach it to the body with a small rectangle tab(this will make the head poke out, teacher may have to help)
- Draw feet, use crayons to enhance body feathers and head, draw eyes
- Stick red sticker wattles and crown to the head
- take picture to paint station and GENTLY stamp letters to create the feathers (pressing hard creates blobs of paint!)
- optional - glue grain on each side of the turkey's feet
Add turkey info to your Thanksgiving crafts for kids
Fun vocabulary to share with your students...
- Adult male turkeys are called toms
- Females are called hens
- Very young turkeys are poults
- Juvenile males are jakes
- Juvenile females are jennies
- A group of turkeys is called a rafter or a flock
- The long fleshy area that grows from a turkey's forehead is called a snood (kids love that word)
Did you know?
- Turkeys like to eat grass, seeds, acorns, nuts, berries and small insects such as grasshoppers
- Only the male turkey makes the gobble sound
- Wild turkeys prefer to sleep in tree branches because they are safe from predators
- Coyotes, foxes and raccoons like to munch on turkeys
- Turkeys often sleep in flocks
- When they wake up they call out a few soft yelps before coming down the tree to make sure that the rest of the turkeys are safe
More Thanksgiving crafts for kids here...
