OK, this is a departure from my recent more serious posts. Every now and again, I go into preschool teacher mode. I LOVE holiday themed crafts! My grand-kids know me as the “crafty Grandmama!” Whenever I babysit, we must do at least three crafts!

Holidays are easy and, unlike when I was raising my kids, we now have the internet and PINTEREST! Yay!

This craft was done on the fly, with materials I had in the house. Oh, you don’t have tissue paper, glue and toilet paper rolls handy? Improvise! The kids won’t know the difference!

Each of these crafts is great for fine motor skills. Kids 3 and up can do them, with the older kids having more participation.

Materials for our friendly turkey:

Body: 1 toilet paper roll or 1/2 paper towel roll. Barring either of these, create a cylinder from brown construction paper.

Feathers backpiece: piece of cardboard or heavy paper cut in circle. I used a plate about 5″ wide to trace my circle. Older kids can cut their own circle.

Feathers: tissue paper in various colors.

Glue stick or Elmer’s type glue.

Button or google eyes (optional)

Take the tissue paper and tear pieces off and put on a plate or in a container . This is perfect for little hands because they don’t have to be uniform in size.

Take the circle that you cut and have the child cover it with a glue stick. If you use liquid glue, pour it into a plate and with a paintbrush, have the child paint the glue on.

Then have your child take pieces of tissue paper and lay them on the circle to create colorful feathers. No rhyme or reason. Let the child have the freedom to have feathers of polka dots, pink or whatever combination they want from the tissue paper on hand.

Tissue paper can be laid flat or crumbled up. Again, child’s choice.

On the paper cylinder, add button or googly eyes if you have them. If not, cut eyes from construction paper or draw on with markers.

Add a beak with red tissue paper rolled up or cut from construction paper.

We added little feet to ours.

In the center of the feathered circle, glue the turkey body. I also stapled it to the cardboard circle for extra stability.

Extra points if you want to notch the circle to look more feathery!

That’s it!

Now teach them this song to go with it:

A turkey is a funny bird.

His head goes wobble wobble.

And all he knows is just one word.

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Happy turkey day!

Skillset: fine motor skills tearing paper, choosing one piece and gluing it, rubbing on glue, choosing colors, rhyming.

Happy turkey day!

If you enjoyed this simple craft, please share it, let me know in the comments. Then click the follow button on the right!

Angela DiCicco

The Italian Grandmama

theitaliangrandmama.com

theitaliangrandmama@gmail.com

11/22/19