Thanksgiving is just around the corner and the best way to celebrate it is by making fun festive crafts! There are so many amazing Thanksgiving crafts that you can do at home, but what’s better than making Turkey Thanksgiving crafts! Making turkey crafts is the perfect theme for your child to celebrate and understand Thanksgiving. I picked out some of my favorite turkey crafts that I think you and your child will be thankful for. Gobble gobble!
1. Thanksgiving Turkey Dough Craft from Tools to Grow OT – This is the perfect tactile recipe that will allow you and your child to explore and create your very own turkey! Your child will be exposed to great sensory benefits such as tactile, proprioception, following verbal and written directions, tool usage, hand strengthening, and praxis.
2. Soda Bottle Turkey Fine Motor Activity from Stir the Wonder – What’s better than getting into the holiday spirit by making a big motor turkey! Here your child can decorate their turkey with large colorful feathers, googly eyes, and some brown paint. Instructions here
3. Turkey Juice Box Cover from Sugar Aunts - If you’re looking for a cup holder for your child for Thanksgiving dinner, here is the perfect craft you can make at home. Just grab some colored feathers, googly eyes, some crafting scarps, and a cardboard tube that can be made into a turkey cupholder.
4. Clothespin Feathers Turkey from Stir the Wonder - Making this fun craft is a great way to work on your child’s fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and bilateral coordination. Your child can match the colored feathers to where they belong on the turkey.
5. Turkey Fine Motor Activity and Craft from Fantastic Fun and Learning – Working on scissor skills and cutting the toilet paper roll is the perfect way to help strengthen your child’s fine motor skills. Also, placing the feathers into small holes of the turkey makes perfect practice for fine motor skills and visual skills.
6. Feed the Turkey from Mama OT – Sometimes the simplest crafts are the best! Work on bilateral coordination, pincer grasp, hand-eye coordination, and in-hand manipulation, and then decorate your turkey. Take it up a notch by adding in some tongs and placing the turkey on one side of your child and the noodle on the other side to promote crossing the midline.
7. Play Dough Toothpick Turkey from Mama OT – Roll up some playdough or Theraputty to make a toothpick turkey. Work on building up pincer grasp, tripod grasp, strengthening fingers and webspace, separation of the two sides of the hand, bilateral coordination, and hand-eye coordination. This super simple turkey craft is easy and fun!
8. Clothespin Toilet Paper Roll Turkey from Mama OT – This fun activity provides a great way for your child to work on their fine motor skills. The clothespins are the perfect item to help your child work on their pincer grasp, strengthening their fingers/hands/webspace, and bilateral coordination.
9. Button the Feathers on the Turkey from Mama OT – This turkey craft uses buttons and other creating pre-buttoning activities to help your child develop their fine motor and self-dressing skills. Work on your child’s pincer grasp, bilateral coordination, hand-eye coordination, and button/self-help skills when doing this activity.
10. Thankful Turkey Craft from Kids Activities Blog – Using this step-by-step tutorial by Kids Activities Blog is a great way for children to share what they are thankful for and to work on their visual skills!
11. Turkey Felt Board Feather Matching from Teach Beside Me – Working on bilateral coordination, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills is best when making a craft for Thanksgiving. This activity is fun because it allows your child to work on color recognition and pattern.
12. Feather Color Sorting and Fine Motor Activity from Fantastic Fun and Learning - To get started with this craft, gather some colorful playdough, feathers, googly eyes, and small foam triangles to work on color sorting and recognition. This is the perfect activity to help your child learn how to sort colors and work on their fine motor skills at the same time!
13. Thanksgiving Handwriting Craft from Tools to Grow – Work on fine motor skills, bilateral integration, visual-motor coordination, praxis, and hand-writing skills by making this Thanksgiving Handwriting Craft. Such a great turkey craft to do with your child to show what they are thankful for!
14. Watercolor Coffee Filter Turkey from Typically Simple – Cutting along the edges of the coffee filter, adding color with a marker, and drawing a turkey face on the front is a fun creative craft to do before Thanksgiving. Typically Simple shares a craft to work on scissor skills and fine motor skills.
15. Leaf Turkey from Toddler Approved – Grabbing some leaves from outside is a fun fall and Thanksgiving craft. This is another great fine motor skills craft to work on with your child.
If you have any suggestions on fun Thanksgiving activities that are more sensory-related please share with us!
Thank you for reading our 15 Fun Turkey Crafts for Thanksgiving article!
Hand muscles are very important to accomplish daily activities. Therapists often observe that most children that they work with have weak hand muscles. Children who have weak hand muscles can struggle with daily activities. To help strengthen these muscles, it is important for children to complete tasks to help strengthen their hand muscles. These activities do not have to be boring; they can be really fun and creative!
Children are not the only ones who may have weak hand muscles, adults can also have weak hands. Therefore, making it important for both children and adults to complete everyday tasks. These tasks can involve using fine motor skills which allow for coordination, movement, and strength in our hands.
Children use their fine motor skills while holding a pencil, using scissors, tearing paper, tying shoes, zippering up jackets, and many other daily activities.
Working on hand strengthening activities are important for children to work on while they are young, so they do not struggle with daily activities when they are functioning adults.
It's also important to keep in mind that your child’s hand muscles do not get better in one session, they need multiple sessions to see progress. It is all about REPETITION.
Here are some different types of creative activities that I found for strengthening hand muscles:
Squeezing Activities
Theraputty or playdough: Your child can squish, pinch, roll, squeeze, or smush when playing with Theraputty or playdough which is great to build up strength for hand muscles.
My children love Crazy Aarons THINKING PUTTY. There are so many fun and unique versions. There is magnetic putty, glow in the dark putty, hyper color putty that changes color when played with, outer space putty and so many more!
Both putty and playdough are perfect for hiding small objects, such as coins or beads, then make your child find them and pull them out. Rolling the playdough into a snake and then cutting it with scissors is a great way to work on using fine motor skills and visual skills. Playing with Theraputty and playdough is great for hand-eye coordination, building up hand muscles, and working on play.
PUSH AND PULLING TOYS AND ACTIVITIES
WEIGHT BEARING ACTIVITIES
Here is a great source that I found to get more information on weight-bearing activities.
If you want more information on how to strengthen your child’s hand muscles, here are some websites I found with a lot of educational information.
There are so many more fun and creative activities to help strengthen your child’s hand muscles. Remember, it will take a while to see some progress, but with practice every week your child will get better! Consistency is key!
After five years in practice, I decided that I needed to upgrade the look of my office to allow for optimal patient care. Upon researching some possibilities, I came across the Fun Factory Sensory Gym. I immediately called the company to purchase my own gym unit. We scheduled an install date and in three short days, my gym and my vision were complete. My patients and their parents walk in and are amazed at the beautiful and fun set up. I truly feel that my patients are getting the most effective and efficient care because I have the best equipment to address their individual needs. With the Fun Factory Gym equipment, I am able to help these children improve by Leaps and Bounds!
The Kaufman Children’s Center was proud to announce an exciting upgrade made here at the KCC. Over a long weekend in late January 2013, we completed a huge remodel to our sensory gym.
