Handprint and Footprint Turkey Craft for preschool and elementary school kids. Fun Thanksgiving craft kids will love, and parents can cherish.
Handprint and Footprint Turkey Craft
Today we started our Thanksgiving and Turkey unit!
The girls wanted to make turkeys immediately, so I thought we would start with a pretty messy craft, but one of my favorites so far!
I personally love using my girl’s handprints and footprints for arts & crafts.
To me, it doesn’t just become an art project; these are the crafts I will save and treasure forever.
When they are my age, I will be able to pull them out and remember how little they were and the amazing times we had homeschooling!
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Materials Needed For Handprint Turkey Craft
- Paint Brushes
- Paint (4-5 colors + brown)
- Construction or Craft Paper
- Googly Eyes
- Craft Glue
- Orange marker or a small orange triangle
- Baby wipes or sink
- Glitter (optional)
- Little hands and feet
The first thing you want to do is to make sure you are either close to a sink or tub or have a box of wipes next to you.
This will help with keeping the mess to a minimum.
When I did this with my Pre-Kindergarten classroom I had baby wipes handy.
How To Make Handprint and Footprint Thanksgiving Craft
- Paint the bottom of your child’s foot with brown paint and print on construction paper. Make sure the footprint is low enough on the paper to have space for your handprints. You could also do the handprints first and then the footprints.
- Now it’s time for some handprint feathers. You can do 4 or 5 handprints with 1 handprint in the middle. We did 4 because we did our footprint first, but if you want to do 5 handprinted feathers, make sure to do the handprints before the turkey’s body.
- Paint your child’s hand completely and help them make a handprint on their turkey for feathers. Try to lay a hand on nice and slow; this way, the paint does not smudge.
NOTE: Their right hand will be printed on the left side of the turkey, and their left hand will be printed on the right side.
- Glue on some googly eyes and a triangle for the beak.
- Paint your child’s pinky red to add the turkey’s wattle.
- My oldest wanted to add some glitter to her turkey, so we added a little glitter on her feathers.
We made a bit of a mess making our turkey, but it was a lot of fun!
Where’s my youngest daughter’s turkey, you ask?
Well… she wouldn’t let me paint her feet or hands. She told me it was yucky! Maybe next year!
Have you done any turkey arts & crafts yet?
*First published on Nov 5, 2013*
Ashley says
I love your version of the footprint turkey! Anything that captures little hands and feet is adorable!
abccreativelearning says
I agree!