Beauty...
Be your own
kind of beautiful
Be your own
kind of beautiful
The time has come and it’s the week of Thanksgiving! As a momma of three kids under five, it’s really hard to get them to understand the concept of the holiday. That’s why I try to incorporate a craft to teach them what it means to be thankful and grateful.
The first craft that I’m going to show you today is the Thankful Turkey. Don’t be reluctant to give it a try because of it’s appearance… it’s not as hard as it looks. Everyday in November, leading up to Thanksgiving I have my kiddos write what they’re thankful for on a piece of construction paper, then on Thanksgiving we take them out and read them aloud. Whether they say they’re thankful for barbies, legos or our pups, it gets them thinking about the great things they have in their life.
Step 1- Remove Lid from almond milk container and hot glue the top sideways. Let dry.
Step 2– Using a box cutter, cut a square in the bottom middle of the carton. Be sure to leave the bottom side of the square attached**do not cut** Pro tip: the longer the sides are, the easier it is to open and shut.
Step 3– Cut a small “x” on each side of carton for arms
Step 4– Spray paint the carton with brown paint. Depending on the surface, it will take 3-4 coats of paint.
Step 5– Glue on feathers to the back of the carton
Step 6– Glue on googly eyes, set aside… let dry
Step 7– While it’s drying…. get your orange construction paper (for beak)… cut corner of paper in a diagonal to look like a triangle. Fold each side of the triangle inward, flatten it, and then raise the edges to touch like a pyramid. Then hot glue the ends together.
Step 8– Get red construction paper. Cut the paper to a gobble shape.
Step 9– Take the beak (orange construction paper) hot glue the beak to the gobble and then hot glue that to the bird.
Step 10– If you want to jazz up your turkey… Cut a heart out of the red construction paper. Glue red feathers to it, then attach it to center cutout. This heart accentuates where we put our “thankful” notes.
Step 11– Hot glue the ends of the straws and push into each sides of the turkey where you made your “x.”
Step 12– Using burlap or construction paper, hot glue letter stickers to say “thankful.” (The reason I hot glue is because it’ll stay on better and longer.
Step 13– Using whole punch or scissors, punch holes in burlap to make room for string then thread string through each hole and attach to each end of the straw by tying in a simple knot.
Step 14– Using your leftover construction paper, cut them into squares. Leading up to Thanksgiving, have your kids write what they’re thankful for everyday. Then place them in the heart shaped box you created.
Read the notes aloud on Thanksgiving day!
If you have a little less time on your hands, I also came up with these gratitude rocks. Make them fun and unique to fit YOUR family! We put some words of encouragement on them like “you rock,” “I believe in you,” “you are my superhero” and more! It’s all about making the crafts fun for your kiddos and just getting them involved.
You can make these for Thanksgiving or for those of you have Friendsgiving… it’s a fun little craft to do at the dinner table. We cut out some cardboard into tree shapes and made them standup. I suggest using a stencil, trace the tree, cut it out and make slits in the tree trunk so they are four-dimensional! Then get fun paper, I found some at Michael’s and cut out different leaf shapes. Lastly, poke holes into the “leaves” and tie string in them so you can hang it on the tree. Have all of your friends and family members write down one or two things that they’re grateful or thankful for on the leaf and you can take turns reading them out loud at the dinner table!
Don’t forget that no matter what, have fun with these crafts! It’s okay if there’s a happy mess… it’s all about being thankful that you have your loved ones around you! And if you have young ones, dress them up as turkeys because it’s pretty stinkin’ cute!
I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’m heading to Destin, Florida today for my father-in-law’s 80th! Where are you going for the holiday? Comment below!
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Till next time!
