[Millie]

I teach 4 yr. olds and we have a program at Thanksgiving where we all have 2 art activities on our tables. Last yr. I made turkeys out of tera cotta pots and the parents loved them! The other 2 teachers did turkeys out of paper bags. They were cute but in my opinion they will get mashed when you save them. THis yr we must all do the same art and they do not want to do the art I did and I do not want to do the paper bag turkeys. Does anyone have a suggestion?

[SusanTeach]

What about the little turkeys made out of oreos? Those are cute. Another idea is the pine cone turkeys, using their handprints as the "feathers". You could also do a wreath with paper plates, and handprints (for the "foliage") that have things they're thankful for written on them. A last idea is to make the turkeys similar to what you did with the terra cotta pots, but use plastic cups instead. That would be more of a compromise. Maybe they're afraid yours will get broken, so that might help. They make the tera cotta-looking pots out of plastic, too, but I'm not sure of the cost of those.

[Millie]

thank you for your ideas. I had thought of the pine cone turkeys for we did those one year but one of the teachers is allergic to pinecones. Let me ask you another question if you do not mind I am changing the theme in my room this year to a circus theme. I do not know my students until the day before they arrive so I am unable to contact parents to send me a picture or anything but do you have an idea about a circus bulltin board or door decoration?

[SusanTeach]

A circus theme would be cute! I always like the kids' names to be on the door in some fashion. I would put a Ringmaster near the top, with your name on her. Then have different clowns, animals, tight rope walkers, etc... all over the door. When you get your kids' names, you can add them to the pictures. You can probably get a circus coloring book to find different circus pictures - or use several shaped tablets (school supply stores). Or even a bulletin board set may have enough cut-outs to label.

Sorry, my mind's blank on anything else right now. You might want to start a new thread called "Circus theme" and see what others can recommend.

[NCteach]

I taught kindergarten for 4 years and one year we made turkeys out of an apple, toothpicks and marshmellows (they were the feathers). They really turned out cute. You can use other edible things for eyes, nose, gobble...

Good Luck

[Kat's Mom]

When I taught first grade, we made cute turkeys with two foot tracings on brown and then several diff. colored hand tracings to be the tail feathers and two folded in front for the wings. I don't know if you could google it somehow and find directions, but they're pretty darn cute! You would definitely need parents to help the children complete them, but would be worth saving because they could remember how little their feet/hands once were. I've always done them w/ construction paper,but foam would make them hold up better.

[teachmo]

This is just my opinion but I prefer the paper ones. They easily go inside a notebook. I also think the apple ones sound cute and you could take a picture of them for the parents. I like to keep scrapbook memories but do not like a lot of bulk items. That may just be me. I have gotten some really cute things along the way but they end up stuffed in a cabinet some place. I also really like ornaments.

In my classroom I try to keep things easy to save or keep.