Preschool Turkey Handprint Craft - Red Ted Art

The preschool Thanksgiving fun continues. As we head into the fall months, of course we need an adorable Preschool Turkey Handprint Craft! This is one from our series of triangle craft stick crafts – combining shape making, with seasonal crafts. So today, we have our handprint Thanksgiving turkey! TOO CUTE! Let’s see how this Turkey Craft is made!

Simple Preschool Turkey Handprint Craft for Thanksgiving

Learn objectives for this Simple Preschool Turkey Craft:

First and foremost, this little turkey craft is of course meant to be FUN! That is always the primary objective of all our crafts here on Red Ted Art, however with this craft you can also:

Introduce simple counting (1, 2 and 3 for the craft sticks)
Discuss shapes (the triangle and how many sides a triangle has)
Discuss colors – in our example we discuss the turkey colors and different turkey feathers
Scissor handling skills – cutting straight lines of the triangle though with younger kids you may want to help cut out the handprint, as well as the eyes and ears
Old kids can also practice writing some gratitude messages on the handprints!

Handprint Turkey Craft – Supplies used

Craft sticks – we used medium sized craft sticks, but experiment with what you have and use some that “fit” with your child’s hands. If the craft sticks are very large, you may want to use two handprint cut outs for the horse’s mane. If they are small, you may wish to cut out several hands to make a big “fan” of feathers
Paint (or you can leave the craft sticks plain)
Paper or card in your preferred turkey color (brown of course is a classic choice, but you could also use brown packaging paper (e.g. recycled from parcel deliveries) or use some fun seasonal craft paper!)
Paper for your handprint cut outs in the desired colors
Scrap paper for eyes, beak and wattle
Pen, scissors and glue stick!

You can watch the handprint turkey video instructions or follow the step by step instructions below!

How to make a Triangle Turkey with Craft Sticks and Handprints!

As mentioned, begin by painting your craft sticks if you wish to paint them. As you see here we have used jumbo craft sticks, to fit the main better. But I reckon any craft sticks will work. We have done other triangle craft stick crafts, where we left the sticks unpainted, and they still look great! So it really is a personal choice (see our Handprint Angels as examples).

Once painted and dried.. the easiest way to get your triangle and paper to fit perfectly, is to glue your craft sticks straight onto the paper. You may want to lay them out first. You can have the craft sticks overlapping at one end (a bit more secure) as in this image here, or you can have them touching (again, as we did with the handprint angel). Both work and it is a question of preference and size.

Once the craft sticks are glue in place and dried, cut out the triangle! Your preschooler can have a go at this. It is a great opportunity to cut out straight lines.

Now it to get your Thanksgiving turkey features ready!

Begin my tracing and cutting out your child’s hands. It is probably easier if you cut the hands. You can technically, just trace one hand. Layer the papers and cut out several hands in one go. Here we did three hands in orange, red and yellow. However, you can cut out more if you wish.

This is also a great opportunity to add messages of gratitude to your handprint turkey feathers!

Layer the hands so they fit nicely with your triangle.

Stick to the back of your triangle.

Now all that is missing is your turkey’s face!

You will need to cut out some fun turkey eyes from white paper, a turkey beak and a turkey wattle. These are all simple shapes. But you can experiment with more primary shapes – such as a triangle beak and maybe just a red oval for the wattle.

finished handprint turkey with preschool

Assemble your final features and your traingle turkey craft is finished!

finished preschol turkey handprint craft

Admire! How cute is this Craft Stick Turkey with Handprint Feathers?!?! Such an adorable keepsake for Thanksgiving!

Check out more wonderful Thanksgiving Ideas for Preschoolers – in our special collection of Preschool Thanksgiving Crafts, as well as our more extensive Preschool Turkey Craft collection: