| Thanksgiving in America traditionally involves a turkey. | | | | Or, if you're feeling really silly, you can use pictures of |
| Each year, we take our kids on their own personal | | | | your kids and call them your "little turkeys". |
| Turkey Hunt. They LOVE it. And we have a blast | | | | 9. As always, your imagination is the limit to what |
| too. | | | | you can do. |
| First, we cut construction paper into fourths. (You | | | | Once our turkeys are complete we need cages to |
| can use index cards if this is easier and readily | | | | keep them in once we've caught them. We've used |
| available. You can also use regular printer paper or | | | | brown paper sacks, shoe boxes, tissue boxes, and |
| loose leaf paper. Whatever you have on hand will | | | | even ziplock bags for this purpose in the past. Pretty |
| work.) Then we give each child three or four pieces | | | | much anything will work. If you are using something |
| of paper, and take a few pieces for ourselves. We | | | | disposable, you can decorate it or draw bars on it like |
| then make a turkey on each. Some years we've | | | | a cage. |
| gotten carried away with our crafting and made 3-D | | | | When our turkeys and cages are complete, we |
| turkeys instead. | | | | choose our first Guide for our Turkey Hunt. Our |
| Here are some ideas for your turkeys: | | | | Guide hides all of the turkeys in the forest, one room |
| 1. Trace your child's hand and let them color it in, | | | | of the house. Once they are all hidden, the Turkey |
| drawing a beak and feet. | | | | Hunt begins. Our hunters, the other children or |
| 2. Trace their hand on a sheet of construction paper, | | | | players, begin to search for the turkeys. As they are |
| cut it out and glue it to your sheet. | | | | found, our hunters bring their catch to their Guide. |
| 3. Let them use paint and a hand print to make their | | | | The Guide will keep the captured turkeys pinned up |
| turkey. | | | | according to the hunter who has caught them. |
| 4. Let them draw or color the turkey. | | | | Once all the turkeys have been found, we count |
| 5. Use craft items like craft foam, feathers, wiggly | | | | how many each hunter caught. The hunter who has |
| eyes, and pom poms, and felt to build a small turkey | | | | caught the most turkeys becomes the Guide for our |
| on the page, or independent of the page. | | | | next hunt. And the game begins again. The kids love |
| 6. If you want, you can print small clip art turkeys | | | | it. They have fun making a mess and making their |
| and let your kids color them. | | | | turkeys, then they play with them over and over |
| 7. You can use fancy lettering to decorate the word | | | | again until Thanksgiving has come and gone. |
| Turkey if you don't want to draw or make one. 8. | | | | |