#113 Two Turkey Crafts

Both of these things either reuse something or use something found in nature. The first one is a Paper Bag Turkey. We diverted from the instructions we were given from her preschool teachers (it was a suggested parent involvement activity that we do/keep at home) to make feathers our of colored construction paper. What you need is: 2 brown paper bags (one lunch size and one a grocery bag size), 2 googly eyes, a red balloon, a rubberband, a discarded newspaper and 2 sheets of colored construction paper (my daughter wanted red & yellow). Oh! And double-stick tape (we had leftover stuff from when we used to put plastic on windows - no longer have to do that since we got new windows.)

I traced a feather on to 8 strips of paper (4 of each color) and she cut out the feather. We set those aside and she crumpled up newspaper to fill each bag half full. Then we twisted the tops of each bag and secured the large bag shut with a rubber band. Then we slipped the twisted part of the small bag into the rubber band to attach the head to the body.

Then with small pieces of double stick tape she attached the googly eyes, beak (cut from scraps of construction paper), waddle/balloon, and feather.

And what's great about this project is that we had to use very little new products and everything can be recycled (bags, newspaper, & construction paper) or taken off & reused on another project (rubber band, googly eyes & balloon).

For this project we went outside and picked 4 small pinecones off one of our bushes. We also acquired 8 small google eyes, 1 popsicle stick (cut into 4 pieces to be glued on back to prop turkey upright), and 4 pipe cleaners to be cut & shaped to make the feathers, beak, waddle & feet. Oh! And a hot glue gun, so this was a project that mommy had to help with. I would apply the glue & she would stick on the pipe cleaners I had previously cut & shaped (see picture -- click on it to make it larger -- to get an idea of what the shaping looks like.)

She put her four little "baby" turkeys and set them in a picture window next to the paper bag "mommy" turkey. Guess we will have to come up with one more turkey craft so we can have a daddy turkey there too.