Thanksgiving Paper Bag Puppet or Sitting Turkey

Surprisingly, I didn't have anything like this on my Thanksgiving Pinterest board! [I do now!] So, I just Googled "paper bag turkey puppet" to get an idea of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to offer them a choice of puppet or sitting turkey, and ended up using the same craft for both, which I didn't intend. 

Since there were so many ideas, I really can't say that any particular one is what we followed, probably this one from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman is the closest. 

I provided a triangle template for the preschoolers to trace and cut out the beak first. Then I provided two different sized lids for them to do the white and black for the eyes. 

They traced their hands, and I cut them out through the five sheets of construction paper for the tail feathers, and again for the feet. Probably a 5-6 year old could do that themself, but these preschoolers are just now working circles and not able to do the intricate cuts necessary for the hands. 

They chose whether they wanted a puppet or a sitting turkey. The little ones just did the puppet, because I knew they were going to tear them up pretty quickly anyway. 

For the sitting ones, I folded up the bottom of the sack to create a fold line and made a box at the bottom. The children wadded up two sheets of newspaper and stuffed their turkeys, then I stapled the sides for stability and taped the seam. 

At the end, the preschoolers used the scraps from the red to free form their wattles. 

When doing the black on the eyes, I told them that they could place them center, left, right, up or down, but they had to do both eyes the same. I didn't want to make this TOO much a product versus process piece, so I didn't instruct them further than that on placements.

I found it interesting that the toddlers were more concerned with symmetry and placement than the preschoolers.

It's a good opportunity to practice skip counting by 5's, which we will be doing. Crafting with toddlers in the mix doesn't lend itself well to extended teaching in the moment.
Tags: handprint, craft, preschool, pre-k, turkey, Thanksgiving, activity, art, hand, print, shapes, shape, paper, bag, brown, cutting, scissors, tracing, math, skip counting, counting by 5's,