Thanksgiving Preschool Craft - Turkey Hats

Are you and your children tired from hand print turkey crafts? Do something very different and craft a feathery turkey hat that works perfectly with a Thanksgiving book Thelonius Turkey Lives.

This post has been updated on October 21, 2014 with new graphics and links. Disclosure:I am an Amazon associate and this post contains affiliate links. For full disclosure, please click here and thank you for supporting my blog!

Thelonius Turkey Lives

My daughter thoroughly enjoyed Thelonius Turkey Lives! by Lynn Rowe Reed. Thelonius is one smart turkey, and he is determined not to become dinner on a Thanksgiving table. He asks other farm animals for help, and they try various tricks to make their owner give up on what they perceive as her quest to pluck Thelonius while he is still alive. Of course, as you can guess from the title, all ends well. Felicia, in fact, has very different use for Thelonius’ feathers, and the end of the book is somewhat given away by our project below. The book itself also opens all kinds of other creative possibilities with its bright colors and mixed media illustrations.

Paper Plate Turkey Hats

We used paper soup bowls for our hats to make them “wearable”. The first step was, of course, paint them. For once, my 5 year old Smarty did fairly well with not mixing colors into muddy brown, but she put so much paint on hers that it took about 2 hours to dry out. Therefore, she quickly volunteered to decorate the hat that I painted.

I loved to see my non-crafty Smarty working very independently on this project and being engrossed in it. We set out feathers, buttons, and pipe cleaners to decorate the hats. Smarty wanted to have a silk maple leaf for the tail, but then she went wild with feathers, so you can’t quite see it.

Ta-da! The fashion model is ready for a turkey hat show!

More Turkeys and Thanksgiving Ideas for Kids

Check out our preschool Thanksgiving turkey art from years passed.
Follow my Pinterest board Thanksgiving.
Follow Natalie Planet Smarty Pants's board Thanksgiving on Pinterest.

Your Turn

Do you have a “go to” Thanksgiving craft for the kids in your care?

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