Five Gobbly Good Turkey Crafts, Each With a Different Learning Focus, for Your Preschoolers

This blog was originally published on November 8, 2021, and updated with new information on November 6, 2024.

Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away, and with it comes the overwhelming task of choosing crafts to correlate to the holiday! 

So let’s focus on the ultimate symbol of the day — the turkey! 

There’s a bounty (pun intended) of turkey craft ideas out there. So if you’re looking for some new ideas beyond handprint birds, we’ve got you covered with this compilation of turkey-themed activities to promote different learning objectives.

Check out these five gobbly-good craft ideas to celebrate the holiday while keeping those little minds working!

Turkey Napkin Holders to Teach Scissor Skills

If the kids in your classroom are working on their scissor skills, making these turkey napkin holders would be a great way to practice cutting. You can make them as intricate, or as simple, as you choose and they can be adapted to the skill level of each child. 

Here are the supplies you’ll need:

• brown, red and orange card stock
• fall scrapbook papers or fall-colored paper
• googly eyes
• scissors
• exacto knife 
• tape
• glue
• (if you have cardboard toilet paper rolls, they could be incorporated as well!)

Kids who are able to cut quickly can make more feathers for their turkey, while kids who require more time can cut fewer feathers.

The napkin holders would be a cute addition to any Thanksgiving dinner table and can be adapted to use as pencil holders too!

Pinecone Turkeys to Learn About Nature

If it’s warm enough and your child care center is near a spot where kids can hunt for pinecones, lead them on an outdoor hunt to find their own pinecones to transform into turkeys!

You can use feathers to create this craft, or leaves (if any remain!) that you find while outside. This is a good time to talk about the changing seasons and how trees adapt to colder weather. For example, you could talk about why leaves change colors in the fall and why they fall off in the winter.

For this craft, you’ll need: 

• pinecones
• orange felt
• feathers or leaves
• googly eyes
• glue

Turkey Feather Activity to Teach Counting

Teaching number recognition is a key part of preschool. For this craft, give each child 10 popsicle sticks. Have them number the sticks 1 through 10 and decorate each stick with a turkey face.

Then tell the kids to glue the number of feathers to each stick that matches the number written on the stick. So if the number written on the craft stick is 7, they should glue on 7 feathers.

This craft has a very simple supply list: 

• 10 craft sticks
• small colored feathers
• glue
• markers 

Some Book Ideas for Your Story Time

There are plenty of wonderful Thanksgiving stories to teach children about gratitude and the spirit of the holiday.

Here are a few to consider:

“Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving” by James Dean: Pete the Cat celebrates Thanksgiving in this groovy book with 15 flaps. 

“How to Catch a Turkey” by Andy Elkerton: A turkey is loose in school and the students must find it! This book incorporates STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) concepts with wonderful illustrations. 

“Taylor the Thankful Turkey” by Sonica Ellis: The goal of this book is to teach kids that being thankful is more than just being grateful for what you have, but also showing others your appreciation!

Alphabet Turkey Match for Understanding Capital and Lowercase Letters

This craft teaches kids to match capital and lowercase letters, with the help of a turkey!

It does require a fair amount of prep work by each teacher to print capital and lowercase letters and glue them to bottle caps. But when you attach the turkey to the poster board, you can get many uses out of it! 

You’ll need:

• poster board
• turkey printable
• capital letters printable
• 26 bottle caps (about the size of a milk cap)
• scissors
• glue stick

How Procare Can Help!

Studies show that the average American checks their phone 262 times per day! That’s once every 5.5 minutes. And 88% of mobile time is spent on apps, according to Buildfire.

Having a child care mobile app streamlines administrative functions and makes life easier for administrators, teachers, and parents so you can focus on what matters most — better outcomes for the children in your care.

And families LOVE seeing what their children are doing in your child care center! Share photos and videos of them making their turkey crafts to increase family engagement and show them how much fun their little one is having in your care.

Download our free “7 Reasons Why a Child Care Mobile App will Help Streamline Operations and Communication at Your Center or School” infographic to learn what this app can do for your child care business!