Thumbprint Turkey Craft
Use these colorful paint projects as festive decorations or as the front of Thanksgiving cards.
- Grades: PreK–K, 1–2, 3–5
Students get to put their stamp on this craft by making turkeys from their own thumbprints.
What You Need:
- White construction paper
- Red, orange, yellow, and brown paint
- Thin paintbrushes
- Googly eyes
What You Do:
- Have each student dip the pad of one of their thumbs into the brown paint, then make two thumb prints in the center of the white construction paper. The thumbprints should be perpendicular to each other and make a backwards L shape.
- Rinse off the brown paint, then have students dip the clean thumb in red paint. Make a few red thumbprints around the horizontal brown thumbprint to create the first row of feathers. Students will need to apply more paint to the thumb after each print.
- Rinse off the red paint, and then, using the same method, create the next row of feathers with orange paint.
- Rinse off the orange paint, and then create the final row of feathers using the same method with yellow paint.
- Using a very thin paintbrush and the orange paint, add feet and a beak to the brown thumbprints.
- Have students use the same paintbrush to add a red beard underneath the orange beak.
- Have students glue on one googly eye above the orange beak to complete their turkeys.
Alternate Craft Idea:
Another way to create this turkey is to have it facing forward on the paper instead of sideways. Surround one brown thumbprint in the center of the paper with the red, orange, and yellow feathers. Two googly eyes would be needed for each of this type of turkey.