Thankful Turkey Thanksgiving Activity

by | Oct 13, 2022

With the holidays rolling around, I’m getting super excited to do so many festive activities with my daughter, especially this thankful turkey activity!

Now that she’s two, she has so much more awareness and understanding of what’s going on and I can’t wait to have her experience all the magic of the holidays.

As Thanksgiving is coming up, I wanted to do some fun activities to teach her about the holiday.

At first, I thought she was too little to do any ‘Thankful’ activities so we did some cute turkey coloring and crafts. However, I also wanted to let her know the significance of Thanksgiving.

Although she’s young, I felt that it was still necessary to talk about what it means to be thankful. This is a very abstract concept for toddlers so I tried my best to put it into terms that she would understand.

I think it’s important to be aware of this concept at a young age.

I talked to her about being happy for the things that we have and she told me all the things that she loved or that make her happy. We did this over the course of a few days because you know how long toddler’s attention spans are.

This way it would give her opportunities to add more ideas and expand on her thoughts.

I was actually so impressed with her understanding and expression during this Thanksgiving activity! Of course, I put it into terms she could understand, but she was able to tell me all the things that she is thankful for and it was pretty adorable.

The only one we had to coax out of her was her baby brother!

THANKFUL THANKSGIVING ACTIVITY FOR TODDLERS + PRESCHOOLERS

Try this simple Thanksgiving activity with your toddler and you’ll be so excited to hear their responses!

WHAT YOU NEED:

  • Construction paper (brown, red, orange, yellow)
  • Scissors and marker
  • Painter’s tape and glue stick
  • Googly eyes (optional)
Try this thankful turkey Thanksgiving activity for your toddler or preschooler. Practice their cutting skills, learning colors, and being grateful.

WHAT TO DO:

Using brown paper, draw the turkey’s body as an hour glass shape, large enough to take up most of the page. With orange paper, draw a small triangle for the beak and a few large feathers in a curved triangle shape.

Using red and brown paper, draw more feathers.

I cut the turkey body and feathers out myself beforehand because I didn’t want my 2 year old getting involved with scissors just yet. If you have an older toddler or preschooler, try having them help you cut the feathers. 

If your child will be cutting, Make a thick dark line as the outline and hold their hands as they cut. These toddler safety scissors are great to start out learning to cut with.

Start by talking to your child about the meaning behind Thanksgiving, putting it into simple terms for them to understand. We talked about things in our life that make us happy and things that we feel lucky to have.

I tried not to give her too many ideas because I wanted to hear what she would come up with on her own first. No answers are silly because they are coming from a 2-year-old.

So even when she said that she’s thankful for chicken nuggets, I laughed but was happy to hear her honest answers.

I wrote each answer down on a construction paper feather with a magic marker as she told them to me. Then, we pasted the turkey body up on the wall with painters tape and glued each feather on.

I even let her do some gluing!

Try this thankful turkey Thanksgiving activity for your toddler or preschooler. Practice their cutting skills, learning colors, and being grateful.

We used googly eyes for the eyes and just cut out a nose and snood. You can simply draw on eyes with a marker if you don’t have googly eyes.

Each day, I would ask her what she was thankful for and if she came up with new ideas, I would add them. She loves seeing her turkey on the wall and even gave him a name- Thomas the Turkey!

Try this thankful turkey Thanksgiving activity for your toddler or preschooler. Practice their cutting skills, learning colors, and being grateful.

. . . . .

Since we are hosting Thanksgiving this year for my extended family, I can’t wait to have it completed by then. My mom will be so excited to see that “grams” made the list!

Enjoy this Thanksgiving activity with your toddler and have fun listening to some of their sweet and silly responses.

Try this thankful turkey Thanksgiving activity for your toddler or preschooler. Practice their cutting skills, learning colors, and being grateful.
Try this thankful turkey Thanksgiving activity for your toddler or preschooler. Practice their cutting skills, learning colors, and being grateful.