Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Thanksgiving Crafts!

Need something to do with all of the little kids as your turkey is cooking? Try out some of these easy projects!

We took a break from our "Our World" lesson plan to get crafty for Thanksgiving! These are l projects that any kid, 1 and older can do in no time at all! And it's all with stuff you probably have around the house already!

Hand print/Finger print Turkey
A new twist on tracing your hand to make a turkey. I decided to trace their hand on construction paper, then glue it down to a piece of plain white paper so that the kids could make the tail feathers of the turkey stand out.

If my kids were older, they probably would have looked more festive, but because they are doing the project and not me, I try really hard to be hands off after tell them what they are doing for the craft. In this project I told them they were making feathers with dot paint markers and a stamp pad.


The only thing that I did on the turkey was make the face and feet, the rest they did on their own. It's simple and easy for them to do but gets them active. It was also really fun to teach them how to gobble once they were finished!

Mayflower/Clipper Craft:
I didn't want to make a million turkey crafts this year so I decided that I was going to focus on the history of Thanksgiving and turn craft time into a lesson.

We taught the kids about how people, now Americans, came over on large ships called Clippers to the land we live on today. Once they arrived, they met some of the first people who lived here, Native Americans. We told them the story of how the Native Americans helped the settlers gather food from the land to have a large feast just before winter. You may want to tell a different story, but this was the one we chose to tell our boys this year.


This was a project built for my boys, they don't really like drawing or coloring, but building a ship! RIGHT ON! Ahead of time, I cut out the shapes for the sails and cut the plates in half, but they did the rest. For the younger kids, you may want to thread the construction paper through the pipe cleaner. After they put the pieces together with tape, they decorated it and sailed it around the room.

Tee-Pee Art:
Living in Colorado we have had the opportunity to travel to some cave dwellings here in the mountains, but the Plains people didn't have mountains and cliffs, so, I taught the boys about tee-pees. We looked at some pictures of tee-pees and other housing, but I wanted to point out the different designs and decorations that the Native Americans used.


I also told them that they could use pictures to tell a story, but they were way more excited to play with the different beans and stickers I got out.

Paper Plate Turkey:
We went to a play date yesterday where we made paper plate turkeys! They turned out really cute!


My friend just got brown paper plates and some turkey heads from a local craft shop. You could use feathers, leaves, or even paper to make your tail feathers! 


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