Thanksgiving Crafts

Listed below are a few unique crafts you can do with your kids or students. Display them on the wall or across the room. Children will greatly enjoy making these Thanksgiving crafts!

Traditional Pine Cone Turkey

For this craft, your children will be making 3D turkeys. For each turkey, you will need a medium to large pine cone, a piece of construction paper preferably in an Autumn color, pen, glue, and scissors. First of all, take the kids outside on a pine cone hunt. They will love being able to pick out their very own cone! Back at the table, have each child put their hand flat against the sheet of construction paper. You, the adult, should trace the kids' handprints, and then have them cut their hands out, if they are able to cut. If they can't do this, you should cut their hands out for them. Next, the children will take their handprint and glue it to the back of pine cone. The fingers will act as the turkey's feathers! If you want, you can always have the children cut out eyes, a beak, and the wobbler using the scrap pieces of construction paper. They will be glued to the inside of the pine cone.

Autumn Leaf Turkey Craft

Kids will love going outdoors and collecting leaves and a pine cone for this unique craft! Have them gather up at least 20 or so green, orange, yellow, Fall-ish leaves as well as one small pine cone. To keep the leaves from drying out and cracking, place them in a heavy book and press them for a few days. Then, the children will take their leaves and glue them to a poster board. You can use 8x11 paper, but something bigger will allow for more leaves and bigger turkeys! Make sure the children glue the leaves to form sort of a rainbow, fan shape. Next, they will glue the pine cone to the leaves. Position it in the bottom center of the arched leaf creation. Now you can see the shape of the turkey. With scissors and colored paper, the kids (or you) can cut out eyes, a beak, and the wobbler. Glue them to the pine cone, and voila!!

Turkey Wreath

This wreath makes a very pretty and colorful piece to hang on a door or wall in your home. You will need: Autumn-colored construction paper, scissors, glue, a good-sized piece cardboard, one large paper plate and one small paper plate, and a black marker. The children can make their own, or they can make one together. Basically, you are gluing rolled strips of construction paper onto a circle shaped piece of cardboard. Then at the bottom you add the face of a turkey. The turkey will be the traced foot of a child. Eyes, wobbler, and beak will be cut out using scraps. If you are a teacher, it would be creative to have each student write one thing they are thankful for on a strip of construction paper before you glue it to the cardboard.

Pilgrim Paper Plate

This is by far the easiest and quickest craft to have children do. Give each kid a white paper plate. Get the flat plates made of paper which do NOT have dividers in them. You will also need to buy thick brown and black yarn as well as those large fake, flat, jiggly, plastic eye balls from the craft section of your favorite store. To begin with, have the children turn their plates over. They will be using the back of the plate. Urge the kids to use crayons and color their plates peach, offwhite, black, brown, (to be skin colors). The children will need several strings of either black or brown string to glue to the top of the paper plate. That serves as the pilgrim's hair. Keep in mind they can make boy pilgrims or girls! They will glue 2 eyes onto the plate, then draw a nose and mouth. Each will finally use a piece of black construction paper to cut out a hat for their pilgrim. If you are in a classroom, hang these pilgrims across the room. It's amazing how each pilgrim will be totally different from the rest!