Adorable Thanksgiving Crafts

Last updated on October 23rd, 2023

Inside: We had so much fun doing this Thanksgiving turkey handprint craft just in time for the holiday. Find out all the details in this post!

Thanksgiving Turkey Handprint Craft

We have been busy getting ready for Thanksgiving in our house – it’s hard to believe it’s almost here! This month has absolutely flown by. We’ve been so busy so it was nice to take a moment to pause and spend some one-on-one time together doing a fun turkey craft. I love the way it turned out!

What You Need For Turkey Handprint Craft

• washable paint
  • red, orange, yellow, brown, black, white
• thin paint brushes
• medium paint brushes
• art smock
• Kraft paper or old drop cloth to protect your table
• paint palette (optional)
• white paper
• colorful construction paper (for option 2)
  • red, orange, or yellow would be best
• glue (for option 2)
• scissors (for option 2)

How To Set Up for Thanksgiving Turkey Handprint Craft

If you’ve never painted with a toddler before, be sure to check out this post detailing how to set up and clean up when painting with children. It also links all my must-have painting supplies!

Once you have the basic set up done to keep your table clean, gather all your supplies for the craft and set them in the painting area. Put an art smock on your toddler and set them up in the booster seat.

You’ll want to keep your paints out of reach until you’re 100% ready to do the handprint or else you’ll have colors mixed together and all over the place.

I found it easiest to squirt each paint color into the paint palette and pre-load each medium-sized brush.

How To Do Thanksgiving Turkey Handprint Craft

Have your child open up their hand wide, palm side up. Quickly paint each finger a fall color with your pre-loaded medium-sized brushes and then paint their palm brown.

*Worst case, if they close their hand on you, just paint over the color again – you won’t even be able to tell!*

Remind your toddler to keep their hand nice and open while you then stamp their handprint onto the middle of the white paper.

Once you’re satisfied with the handprint – let them have fun with it and finger paint, make handprints, and explore the paintbrushes and different colors.

While they are freely painting, you can do the finishing touches. Add turkey feet, a gizzard, a beak, and eyes to your turkey. (You could always choose to glue on googly eyes too!).

For the next step there are two options for finishing touches:

Option 1:

• Add a cute little saying, such as ‘Gobble Gobble!’, ‘Happy Thanksgiving!’ or ‘Happy Turkey Day!’ to your paper and let it dry.
• Once dry, display for all to see!

Option 2:

• Let the handprint dry and then cut out around the turkey.
• On a separate piece of fall-colored construction paper, cut out a heart. (I did the fold in half method for symmetrical heart cutting).
• Glue your turkey handprint into the center of the heart.
• Add dots or any other fun detail along the heart edges.
• Lastly, add a cute Thanksgiving message – we chose to use a quote from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving: “What if today, we were just grateful for everything?”.

Check out this Thanksgiving Cornucopia Treat that went perfectly with our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving movie night!

I love the way this extra-detailed turkey handprint turned out!

Those with older kids can simply have their kids do these finishing details. But for those with younger kids, like me, you’ll have to do them yourself.

That’s what I love about doing crafts together though – we spend time creating together and I get to get involved in the play too. Because even a kid’s craft is a great outlet for us moms to unwind a little. I always have fun doing them!

How did your Thanksgiving Turkey Craft turn out? What message did you choose to add to your painting? Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Be sure to check out these other fun Thanksgiving ideas by clicking here!