Turkey Center Piece

The season is changing into fall and nothing says Thanksgiving like turkeys. This activity involves creating a turkey in the shape of a cone out of construction paper. It can either be made as a decoration, for a centerpiece at Thanksgiving, to play with, or wear it on your head like a party hat. It is a perfect craft for school aged children and adolescents. This activity is a great outlet for creativity and a fun way to recognize, draw, and cut out shapes while celebrating the changing season into fall. 

Supplies: 

• Construction paper (colors: brown, orange, red, white) 

• Scissors 

• Glue or clear tape 

• Colorful feathers 

• Sharpie or a marker 

• Optional: a bowl to draw a circle, a ruler to draw a straight line, hole puncher, and string (if you want to make a party hat)

Activity Steps: 

Step 1: Draw a circle on your brown sheet of construction paper, and cut the circle out. Either draw a line down the middle of your circle or fold in half to get a straight line. Now, cut it in half with your scissors. 

Remember to always be careful when using scissors throughout this activity! 

Helpful hint: you can outline a bowl to get a perfect circle. It should be around 7 inches across. (Note: if you want to wear it as a party hat make the half circle bigger so it fits on top of your head! A large cone would be around 11 inches.)

Step 2: Next you are going to take the half circle of brown construction paper to make a cone shape. Have the straight edge of the half circle facing up. Take the left edge and bring it down to the middle of the curved part of the circle, do the same with the right edge, wrapping the right side over the left to form a point at the top. Now glue or tape the entire left side and the right edge. 

Note: make sure the right edge is overlapping the left side, and that there is no hole in the top of the cone. You have to pull tight on your construction paper! 

You will see helpful hints on the pictures of which sides to fold and where to glue based on the sharpie marks.

Step 3: Using white construction paper draw two small ovals for the eyes and cut them out. Make them a little bit bigger than your thumb. Using your sharpie or marker draw eyes onto your white circles. Glue your eyes on your brown cone in the middle towards the top. 

Step 4: Cut out a diamond shape in orange construction paper and fold in half making two triangles. This will be the turkey’s beak. Face the diamond shape vertical (up and down,) and glue the back side of the bottom triangle on the middle of the cone. The diamond shape should be about the size of your thumb.

Step 5: Now you're going to make the red skin on the turkey's beak by drawing a figure 8 shape on your red construction paper and cutting it out. The 8 shape should be pretty small, about the size of our thumb nail. Glue this to the right side of your orange beak on your brown cone. 

Fun fact: the red skin that hangs from a turkey's beak is called a snood!

Step 6: The last step is to add the feathers. Glue all different color feathers to the back side of your cone turkey. You can put as many or little as you’d like. Remember to make sure the feathers are taller than the top of your cone.

Step 7: Enjoy your cone turkey and how good of a job you did! You can either leave this as a decoration or put it on your head to be a turkey party hat. Remember to wash your hands after using glue, and to be patient for the glue to dry before playing with your cone turkey or putting it on your head. 

Optional step to make into a party hat: hole punch two circles at the bottom of the cone, one on the right side and the other on the left. Take two pieces of string and tie a knot at each hole a sting through it so it can be worn as a hat. Tie a bow under your chin with both pieces of string.