My favorite Thanksgiving activity is making Oreo cookie turkeys.
For each child, you need 2 Oreos, chocolate frosting, 6 pieces of candy corn, 2 red hots, and a malted milk ball. The icing will be your "glue" to hold it all together.
1. Spread icing on one half of one Oreo. Cover it with 5 candy corn pieces, putting them in a fan shape with the pointed ends pointing to the middle of the cookie. These are the feathers
2. Now put the oreos perpendicular to each other, making an L shape. The one with feathers will be upright, while the plain one will be laying down. Put the malted milk ball in the inside of the 90 degree angle you have made. Use icing to hold it all together.
3. The malted milk ball is your face, so now out your red hots on for eyes and take just the tiny point of the 6th candy corn piece to be your beak. Stick the piece to the ball using the icing again.
If this doesn't make sense, let me know.
I always let my students make 2: one to eat, and take home to show parents. I have parents come to volunteer and the parents also sign up to send the ingredients.
FYI: 2-3 tubs of icing should get you through. The rest you can calculate based on your number of students.
Apples, toothpicks, fruit loops, mini marshmallows, a gumdrop (for the head), raisins for the feet
Poke the apples with the toothpicks.
put on fruit loops and top with a mini marshmallow to make them stay put
toothpick in the front with gumdrop for the head
toothpicks (you need 3 to keep it balanced)
It is SO fun and the kids LOVE it!
I use this as my starter project to intro Thanksgiving. Before the activity, I read "Arthur's Thanksgiving" (the last page reinforces that a turkey is a symbol of Thanksgiving)
Take a paper bag (you can use grocery ones but I use small lunch ones) and stuff it with newspaper. Tie up the end and fluff. Then take another bag, cut it in half vertically, so that the fold of the bag is split in half and staple that to the puffed up side as a neck and head. Paint on wings, use the back to paint as feathers, and glue on googly eyes.
Parents love these and they've been centerpieces at my students' Thanksgiving tables in the past...
(You .probably want another adult around to help staple on the neck though)
For the Table Topper Turkey...I am so visual! I cannot figure out how the head and neck attach and is it stuffed also? I like the idea, just cant picture it.
Last edited by mrsmiles; 11-09-2007 at 09:29 PM..
Reason: clarification
Materials:
Several colors of construction paper
toothpicks
one large potato for each child
Have the children cut out feather shapes (4-5" tall) from the construction paper. They should cut as many feathers as they have spelling words that week. Have them write one spelling word on each feather. Tape a toothpick to the back of each feather, with at least 1/2 of the tootpick hanging off the bottom of the feather. Cut a 'figure 8' sort of shape from brown paper, proportionate to the potato (about 3-4" tall). This will be the turkey's head and neck. Draw eyes, a beak and wattle. Tape a toothpick to this piece the same way as the feathers. Then assemble the 'turkey', sticking the head into one end and the feathers in the back end. Cute, inexpensive, and a darling 'centerpiece' for them to take home!
I absolutely LOVE that thanksgiving turkey! Whe I click ont he thumb nail however, it gets larger but blurry too. Does anyone know how to fix that or am I downloading it incorrectely? THANKS!
I thought it was adorable. I sent home cardstock so that parents could trace their hands and on Monday I'll have the kids trace their hands to put on top. I can't wait to see how they turn out!
I make the trukey handprint craft, but we turn it into a hat for our Thanksgiving feast by stapling it to a cardstock headband.
I also do a coffee filter turkey. You need 1 coffee filter per student. Children color on their coffee filters with water-based markers. Spritz the filters with water and the colors will all spread and blend. While the filters are drying, children each trace and cut out a turkey shape on brown construction paper. The shape is a thinner oval with a circle below it-like a squash kind of shape. They add feet, a beak, and wattle with construction paper scraps. They draw in the eyes. Glue the body to the filter. Hang the finished turkey on the window and they look like stained glass.