Thanksgiving Crafts & Activities!
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Thankful Turkey Farm and Caring Corn!
Thankful Turkey Farm
This is our family's take on the Thankful Turkey activity where you add a feather to your turkey for all of the things you are thankful for.
Materials Needed:
- Die cut, foam cut, or handmade paper hand turkeys
- Writing tools (whatever your preference is!)
- Paper
Directions: Begin by deciding where you want to put your turkey farm! We picked a wall space in our dining room that was fairly open. Doors also make good spots. You can even make yours on a poster board, or somewhere that isn't hanging. No wrong places! Make sure you have enough space for when you start adding turkeys.
Once you have your spot chosen, you will need to make your "farm". You can go big here or keep it fairly simply. The farm is going to be more about the turkeys, once they go up! Our farm from a few years ago, seen in the picture above, was made using craft paper, where we drew on a wooden fence. Add a title, "We are thankful for" or "Our Thankful Farm", to your farm.
Now that your farm is ready to go, make sure you have your turkeys ready at hand! In the picture above, we used foam turkeys I had from an old classroom project. You can get ones like these (or similar die cut ones) from most craft stores. Another option, and one of my favorites, is to use handprint turkeys. Trace all of your hands a couple times on a sheet of paper and then make copies of the tracings. Once you cut them out, you will have a bunch of easy and cheap turkeys to use! You can copy onto colored paper or leave them white and let the kids decorate!
Once you have everything set up, you're ready to begin making your thankful turkeys. We always go around and everyone shares something they are feeling thankful for (you may need to do some modeling of this for the littlest family members). Depending on how we are doing our turkeys, we sometimes go around a few times and each share a couple different things. They can be things we are thankful for from that week, or things we are grateful for in our lives in general. When you write the things you are thankful for on your turkeys, an adult can write everything down, older kids can write their own, or younger kids can write theirs using pictures.
For this activity, there a few variations on how you can add your turkeys. You will need to decide with your family...
1) How often you want to add to your turkey farm: You can add new turkeys to your farm each week. It is helpful to be consistent and do the same day each week (my family loves to do ours during our Sunday dinner!). Some other options are to do twice a week, every other day, every day, or even just weekend days. Whatever works best for your family.
2) Whether you want to do individual turkeys or family turkeys:
Individual turkeys - each family member can add a whole new turkey every time you add to your farm. They will write a few things on their turkey that they are feeling thankful for. OR If you like the idea of really filling up your farm, each family member can add multiple turkeys each time, only putting one thankful item on each turkey.
Family turkeys - together as a family, you each will add one thing you are thankful for to your family turkey that you are adding for that day. Then, each time you add to your farm, you will make one new family turkey.
Each time a new turkey is made, be sure to add it to your farm! And don't forget to spend some time together looking over all of the things your family is thankful for!
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Caring Corn
We started this activity last year and it's another fun spin on the Thankful Turkeys! Materials Needed:
Directions for Homemade Paper Corns: To make your own corn, start by drawing a larger triangle. Cut and retrace your triangle again. This time, going from the triangle you just traced, create a smaller triangle. These will be your stencils. You can trace a bunch to fill a paper, then, if able, make copies to save time and efforts. Make sure to use yellow paper for your larger triangles and orange for your smaller ones. Cut out tracings and glue smaller triangle to base of larger triangles. |
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Activity Directions:
For this activity, make sure you have enough corn so that all family members have one corn per week leading up to Thanksgiving. For my family of four, we need 16 pieces.
Every week, give each person a new corn. They can write their name in the bottom orange part. In the yellow part, everyone will write down something or someone they care about. When you do this, it is important to also have a discussion where you share why you care about that person or thing and how you can show that you care!
Here's an example of what my little shared the other day:
She added to her corn - my friend Olivia. Then she shared that she cares about Olivia because she is her friend and that Olivia is a kind person. She went on to share that she can show Olivia she cares for her by smiling at her, asking her to play at recess, and drawing a picture for her.
And here is one that my big shared:
She added to her corn - Mom. She then shared that she cares about me because she loves me and because I am always helping out other people, including her and the family. She shared that she can show me that she cares for me by listening when I tell her things and by trying hard not to fight with her sister because she knows I have asked her to work on those things.
For this activity, make sure you have enough corn so that all family members have one corn per week leading up to Thanksgiving. For my family of four, we need 16 pieces.
Every week, give each person a new corn. They can write their name in the bottom orange part. In the yellow part, everyone will write down something or someone they care about. When you do this, it is important to also have a discussion where you share why you care about that person or thing and how you can show that you care!
Here's an example of what my little shared the other day:
She added to her corn - my friend Olivia. Then she shared that she cares about Olivia because she is her friend and that Olivia is a kind person. She went on to share that she can show Olivia she cares for her by smiling at her, asking her to play at recess, and drawing a picture for her.
And here is one that my big shared:
She added to her corn - Mom. She then shared that she cares about me because she loves me and because I am always helping out other people, including her and the family. She shared that she can show me that she cares for me by listening when I tell her things and by trying hard not to fight with her sister because she knows I have asked her to work on those things.
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Once everyone has added to their corn, find a special place to put them. I have a fall dish (shaped like a leaf) where we put ours so that they become part of our fall decorations!
By Thanksgiving, everyone will have added a few different corn to your family caring collection. Make sure to spend time to look back over them together! *An alternative version (as seen to the left) is to use your corn to write down things you are thankful for. This works great for that as well and are fun to look through when sitting out on a dish or plate! |