Thankful Turkey Free Printable

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This Thanksgiving I am working on cultivating a spirit of thanksgiving in my home. One of the ways we are pursuing this is by creating a thankful turkey. This thankful turkey free printable is a great way to add some gratefulness to your home or classroom during the thankful season of Thanksgiving. However, it certainly can be used any time of the year!

It’s a very easy process and it has tremendous benefits for little learners in classroom use or at home!

Scroll to the bottom of the post for an easy download button for the free template.

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We currently have a 1-year-old, 4 year old, and a 5-year-old. As you can imagine there are some days where we have very thankful children and other days where we have very selfish children! I firmly believe that developing a spirit of gratefulness starts with us as parents.

This is a great family activity to do throughout the month of November and beyond. The whole family comes up with ways we are grateful and we add the reasons to our thankful turkey feathers. Your children can practice their fine motor skills by cutting out the individual pieces. I like cutting out the turkey body and laminating all the parts. Then I include coloring and full-color feathers that my children can either color with crayons or use dry-earse markers on.

How cute would it be if for Thanksgiving a feather was placed at each table setting and before dinner, each person had to write an item of gratitude on their feather? The entire gathering could add their feather to the turkey feather before the Thanksgiving feast. What a great activity for Thanksgiving dinner!

This is an easy activity to modify and a fun way to reinforce gratitude and thankfulness with your family.

This activity could also be a great activity to pair with children’s books about gratitude or Thanksgiving picture books.

Thankful Turkey Free Printable

So what comes in the Thankful Turkey free printable? You get the small version which is approximately 8.5 inches high. The free printable turkey template comes with the turkey body, feathers, and coloring feather version. You will also get the turkey coloring pages which have the coloring turkey and under the saying “I am Thankful.” It is a really fun coloring page for classroom use or homeschooling.

Just click the button below to grab the PDF version and get this cute turkey for the Thanksgiving season.

Ideas for Use

Regardless of whether you are in a classroom or at-home environment, this is a perfect activity for the month of November. Here are some ideas for using your thankful turkey free printable. Right now we have two kindergarten students in our home and they have thoroughly enjoyed this simple craft throughout the years.

• Use the coloring page as a writing assignment.
• Hang in a prominent place and give access to coloring crayons or dry-erase.
• Use as a Thanksgiving Day activity.
• Hang in a free art area with the coloring feathers. Have children color feathers and write what they are grateful for throughout the month of November.
• Use velcro and let children assemble and re-assemble turkey parts.

Make sure you also check out our Thanksgiving place table mats for coloring!

You may ask, how do we use it? When my oldest was a baby I created a tin version of this, which was thrown away long ago due to the dangerous edges. Throughout the month of November, we wrote on the tin feathers and attached them to the body of a form turkey I had made. It was such a fun project even when he was a baby, that we have continued the tradition. Of course, the tradition evolved from the dangerous tin feathers to this laminated version.

We typically start the activity before Halloween and continue it as a cute Thanksgiving craft through Thanksgiving Day. All family members participate in adding feathers to our turkey as we experience moments of gratitude or extend kindness to each other.

Sometimes we like to add those Bible verses to our turkey feathers. It can aid in family scripture memorization!

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

1 Chronicles 16:34ESV

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1

Thessalonians 5:18

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Philippians 4:6

Materials for the Thankful Turkey

1. Free template or Upgrade Files
2. Cardstock (you could use construction paper to print, but I highly recommend cardstock)
3. Printer
4. Scissors
5. Laminator (optional) (tip use a glue stick to keep the pieces to the laminator sheets)
6. Velcro (optional)
7. Coloring Crayons
8. Dry Erase Markers (optional)

You could also replace the printed eyes with googly eyes if you want!

There are many ways to use this thankful turkey craft and you will decide what is best for

Directions

• Print out the free printable or the upgrade (you get the extra large turkey for an extra cost).
• Cut out the relevant pieces (choose if you are going to do the coloring or full-color feathers)
• Laminate the pieces and cut them out again.
• Add Velco to make it a reusable turkey.
• Have your children write gratitude phrases on the feathers (or aid them in this)

You can alternate these directions according to your own needs. Younger children may need to dictate to you their gratitude sayings, while for older children, you could use this as a writing assignment.

Cultivating Gratitude in Your Home

We honestly have so much fun with this activity each year, it’s the perfect way to visualize why we are grateful as a family. Right now my children are still dictating most things to me, but I just love hearing what they want me to write on the turkey’s feathers. It’s a blessing to my mother’s heart to know that my children are cultivating a spirit of gratitude in their hearts. It’s a great activity to do before the holiday season and older kids and younger kids can both enjoy adding feathers to the turkey body.

This isn’t the only activity we do during the month of November, but it sure it certainly is a fun tradition to add to your classroom or home routine.

Here are a few other Thanksgiving activities we enjoy doing with our family:

You can grab the free turkey template by clicking the button below.

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