Kid’s Thanksgiving Craft: Hand and Foot Print Paper Plate Turkeys

I was looking for something to entertain my preschooler and her 10-year-old cousin today, and we ended up making these easy Thanksgiving turkeys using a paper plate, a foot print, and hand prints! A nice round paper plate makes the perfect body for a fat turkey and this was a great activity to occupy the kids before dinner. I needed to help cut out the hand and footprints, but that was about it.

Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

• a paper plate
• 1 sheet of brown construction paper
• 1 sheet of yellow construction paper
• 1 sheet of red construction paper
• 1 sheet of orange construction paper
• brown crayon or paint
• googly eyes, or black crayon
• glue

First, color or paint the back of the paper plate brown.  Then, trace your footprint on the brown construction paper. We didn’t have brown construction paper, so we used white and colored it brown along with the paper plate.

Next, trace the hand prints on the red, yellow, and orange construction papers. Try to fit 3 or 4 hand prints on each sheet for 9-12 total. Cut out each hand print. We just traced on the top sheet and cut out three at a time. You will also need to cut out an orange beak, orange or yellow feet and a red wattle. I just free-handed all these pieces.

Finally, glue everything down! Glue the wiggly eyes (or color eyes with a black crayon) on the heel of the footprint. Add the beak and wattle. Glue the footprint on the back of the paper plate with the toes as the neck in the center of the plate. Glue the turkey’s feet to the bottom of the paper plate.

Turn the plate over and glue the hand prints along the top of the paper plate for the turkey’s tail feathers. Make sure to hold them in place until the glue dries.  Happy Thanksgiving!