Easy Thanksgiving Art Projects for Young Children

You can make a neat art project with your preschooler by making a Thanksgiving decorations to set a festive holiday mood with simple projects with your child. It just takes some colored construction paper and paint and markers to make a cute turkey centerpiece, a cornucopia, a card and other wonderful projects.

In order to make a turkey centerpiece with construction paper and markers and a toilet paper roll, start by cutting out a bowling pin shaped brown piece for the body. It should be about a third higher than the toilet paper roll. Glue it to the empty roll. Then cut out feathers from colored construction paper. Glue the construction paper feathers to the back of the "body" and then draw a happy turkey face to the front of the turkey.

Another project is to make a cornucopia with construction paper. Cut out a horn shape with brown paper and then cut out fruit and vegetables with other colored paper. Use a marker to draw details and have your toddler help you glue the pieces to the cornucopia after letting them paint the cornucopia and letting it dry. It is a fun and easy project for a one to two year old.

You can have them help you make a Thanksgiving turkey card for grandma and grandpa by painting their palm and thumb brown and painting one finger blue, one finger green another red and one yellow and printing their hand on a blank card. Write Gobble gobble on the front and Happy Thanksgiving on the inside and sign the names of the family members and give it to the grand parents.

Another good project is to cut out a yellow piece of corn from paper and two green husks from either side and have your toddler decorate the corn with different colored pieces of construction paper for Indian corn decorations.

A project I enjoyed as a young child was to put colored tissue paper balled up into kernels on a piece of cardboard with a corn shaped outline drawn on it. I did lots of different colors just to be different. We also made Indian vests out of brown paper bags and drew different Indian designs on the front of the vest.

Remember to teach young children how much our forefathers did for us by honoring their memory for this day, and not just make it a stress filled day of visiting family and eating.