Easy Thanksgiving Crafts: Hand Turkey Place Cards and Gratitude Tree

Place card Hand Turkeys

November is the month when the United States celebrates Thanksgiving! Which for some historical reason I’m not 100% certain on is dedicated to mass consumption of turkey, all while worshiping the turkey as a mascot for Thanksgiving.  So of course, we must have a craft dedicated to the almighty turkey whom we know is the patron saint of Thanksgiving.  Let’s memorialize those tiny little hands with hand turkey place cards!

Supplies

Construction Paper (any color will do!)

Pencil

Scissors

Markers/crayons/colored pencil/paint

Optional supplies

Glue

Feathers, glitter, sequins – anything that will make a more optimal mess

Instructions

Fold the construction paper in half (so when you cut, you get two cut outs instead of just one!) and trace your child’s hand with a pencil on top of the folded construction paper. 

You may get 2-3 hand traces before your child gets antsy for the next step, so just keep the best hand as the template and trace as many as you need. 

Cut out the tracing of the hand write a name on each turkey and have the young artist decorate around the name (3 years and under will most likely decorate over the name – just relax and remember it’s the thought that counts). 

Your artist may want to stick to a traditional turkey look, or they may want to take their own artistic direction. 

Your artist can add any additional decorations like feathers, glitter, and sequins for additional pizzazz.  

Bonus: add a special note on the back to your guest!

Gratitude Tree

Kids can often forget about the great things in their life as soon as something goes wrong and they suddenly say “you NEVER buy me/let me do anything!”  It’s interesting that as we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner and list the things we are grateful for – BAM! Black Friday! Lets shop till we drop and grab the last Sleeping Suzie doll from some Grandma’s hand because OUR kid JUST HAS to HAVE it under the tree on Christmas morning.   Make this tree in November and keep it up during the holidays to help the family remember about the abundance of great things in their life. 

Materials

Construction Paper

Scissors

Markers/Crayons/Colored Pencils

Tape

Optional supplies

Glue

glitter, sequins, pom poms real leaves– anything the kids can pick off the tree in order to create a pool of craft-astic debris on the floor over the next month.

Instructions

Use a variety of colored construction paper to create your leaves.  Typical fall colors would be yellow orange and red, but throw in some pink, purple and blue if you want! The more the merrier! There are two ways to create your leave – choose what would work best for you. This would be a neat activity to complete on Thanksgiving with the family.

Option 1: Cut out individual leaves for each statement of gratitude for family members to write on. 

Option 2: Cut out larger cloud like bush shapes from the construction paper to write several statements of gratitude – one for each family member to write on.  Younger children can simply create a list of things they are grateful for while older children or family members might write full sentences. 

The leaves can be left plain, decorated, or adorned with any items you have on hand! Before assembling the tree, cut a single piece of brown construction paper into four strips for the branches. 

You can make additional smaller strips for extended branches if you like.  With the leaves and branches complete, pick a large empty spot on your wall to put up your tree. Tape two pieces of brown construction paper (vertically) end to end to create the trunk of the tree.

My preferred method of taping is to cut a piece of tape and create a loops so its easy to remove. At the top of our trunk, add the strips of brown construction paper to the top of the tree at various angles (add additional extended branches if you want). 

Next, simply tape up your leaves or bush shapes towards the end of the branches. Pro tip: when putting up our bush shapes, experiment with some being taped over the branches and others being under the branches.

Once complete, enjoy your gratitude tree all season long!

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