Simple Thanksgiving Turkey Crafts for Kids

I am a huge fan of crafts that are truly for KIDS. I love seeing true creativity, imagination, and perfectly imperfect renderings of an idea. I firmly believe that art projects should never be uniform or exact.

Have you ever sat down and looked at a project or a pin and thought, “What an awesome project that child’s mom made.” Yeah. Me too. We’ve set out to make those in the past. I’ve become the crazy over-involved mom trying to make each project look “perfect” or “just like the pin.” And ya know what? I SO much prefer the projects that my KIDS make – imperfect scissoring, rainbow colors, and details only second grade girls think of, like adding eyelashes to turkeys. =)

So, in the spirit of beautifully imperfect crafts for kids, I came up with a list of Thanksgiving turkey crafts for your child to make. (And make their own!) Have fun crafting and letting THEIR creativity shine!

1. Hand-print Turkeys

First paint your child’s hand in a variety of paint colors. The kids stamped their hands in a semi-circle (ish) shape. Once dry, have your child cut out a body shape, and a head shape from construction or scrapbook paper. We added a beak and a gobble with colored paper as well, and drew eyes. I love this take on a hand-print turkey.

2. Hand-print Turkeys #2

This is a more “traditional” hand-print turkey, using your child’s hand as the entire body + feathers. We used fingerprints to make the feathers more colorful. (And because finger-painting is just plain fun!)

3. Mosaic Turkeys

Start by having your child draw or cut a turkey body shape. Have them add eyes, a beak, and a gobble. Next, provide a variety of colored paper squares. We used 1 inch construction paper squares. The squares become the turkey’s feathers, creating a beautiful turkey mosaic. I loved seeing what my kids came up with!