Festive Turkey Puppet Craft For Kids

We are making a turkey puppet today! Thanksgiving is right around the corner and what better way to celebrate then making a turkey puppet? Kids of all ages, toddlers, preschoolers, elementary aged children and up, will love making this fun Thanksgiving craft. You can make this adorable turkey puppet at home or in the classroom.

Thanksgiving Turkey Puppet

Looking for a festive holiday craft that not only allows kids to practice fine motor skills, promotes pretend play, and is budget-friendly? Then you’re in the right place, because this turkey puppet is not only cute, let’s your kids pretend to be a turkey, but also uses minimal craft supplies. Which is always a plus.

Not to mention, you can pair this up with a Thanksgiving story or use it for a science lesson to teach about the turkey. It’s your puppet, you do you! Now, without further ado, let’s make a turkey puppet for Thanksgiving! Gobble gobble.

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Related: Have you tried making this paper plate turkey for Thanksgiving?

Supplies Needed To Make A Turkey Puppet

How To Make A Super Cute Turkey Puppet

Step 1

Draw a circle on the brown construction paper and cut it out. That is the turkey’s head.

Step 2

Glue large googly eyes to the brown paper, kind of close together.

Step 3

Cut out a large triangle from the orange construction paper and glue it upside down under the googly eyes.

Step 4

Cut out a large curved drop from the red paper. Glue it on under the beak.

You know us, we added some pizazz! We dabbed glue on the red part and sprinkled it with red glitter. We love glitter!

Step 5

Glue the head on the stick.

Step 6

Draw large upside down drops on the construction paper. Cut them out and glue them to the back of your turkey head.

Step 7

Allow everything to dry and then play with your new turkey puppet!

How To Make This Turkey Puppet Craft Your Own

You can make this Thanksgiving craft your own. Change it up anyway you want to, you can do things like:

• Paint on the eyes or draw the eyes on instead of using googly eyes.
• Don’t add glitter to the wattle.
• Add some little orange feet.
• Add wings.
• You can use real colorful feathers or crafting feathers.
• Paint handprints and use those for feathers.
• Use foam instead of construction paper.
• You could also use felt instead of construction paper.
• Use a dowel rod instead of a popsicle stick.
• Make smaller turkeys using regular popsicle sticks.
• Use color popsicle sticks.
• Paint the popsicle stick or decorate it.
• Instead of construction paper for the head use a small paper plate.

Our Experience With This Fun Thanksgiving Turkey Puppet Craft

We had so much fun making this paper turkey puppet. We’ve made other puppets before like a turkey paper bag puppet, but we really wanted to try something else. Don’t get me wrong, the low-mess turkey paper bag puppets are great, but there is something also great about popsicle stick puppets too.

And this makes the perfect Thanksgiving day craft and is a great way to keep the kids busy while you’re cooking Thanksgiving dinner. And the instructions are easy and there are so many different ways to make the face and turkey feathers. It uses simple materials that you can mix and match. Like if you don’t have Elmer’s glue, use a glue stick! That’s what I love about these Thanksgiving crafts, they’re great for older kids, younger kids, and they’re simple. And sometimes those alone create the best memories.

We actually paired this craft with a Thanksgiving story. We read and illustrated story, created our puppet, and was able to engage in some interactive play as we recreated the story. Either way, we hope you enjoyed this craft as much as we did!

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How did your turkey puppet turn out?