Making A Feathered Turkey

When I was in school I never had anyone to offer to help me with my school projects, but Emily, our little girl had a "preschool" thanksgiving project that the entire family could participate in. Yeah!

Now I didn't want to make it too good, but I saw no reason to make it sloppy either. The most difficult part of this project was keeping Emily from scribbling all over the turkey!

Quickly as a family unit, we decided on what kind of supplies that would be needed. The schools instructions were to use anything lying around the house to dress up the turkey in question. My wife (Meghan) is a crafty person and she always has things lying around. She had a full assortment of ribbons other craft things in her closet.

I began to look around the house for items that could be used for our "Turkey to be." The first thing that came to mind was "feathers!" We didn't have any feathers in the house so I looked on the table in front of me and there was a nice centerpiece with a "fake flower." At first Meghan objected, but eventually gave in.

This gave Emily a chance to help out, since the flower had to be cut up in pieces and glitter sprinkled on the edges. Emily and Meghan both had a lot of fun accomplishing this part of the project.

We needed to have a turkey that stood out from the crowd. So we needed to get creative with the rest!

The following night I visited our local Michael s Craft Store. I roamed the isles and found a few supplies that would finish up our turkey in style. We needed an eye and something to cover the rest of the turkey’s body.

I'm sure most have seen the little plastic eyes that are white with a floating black ball inside. They had a package of these with about ten of them for about 2 dollars. I only needed one, but who knows, maybe we can use the rest some other time. I found a nice selection of feathers that were all different colors. So I grabbed a couple of bags. They didn't cost much. I think all in all they were about ten dollars. Luckily my wife is a thrifty shopper and gave me a 40 percent off coupon! That brought me down to only five or six dollars.

I needed something other than feathers for the "beak, feet and main under the chin." Meghan had all kinds of ribbons at the house and we decided to use some of those to make these items.

After we had everything we needed, we laid out the feathers we were going to use and the bottle of glue. Emily of course wanted to help so I let her do the cutting of the heathers. I didn't want her to cut my fingers off so I guided her with her aim! She cooperated for awhile but soon got bored.

It was easier to squirt some glue in a bowl and use a small paint brush to apply the glue to the paper. We started with the tail feathers first and just started gluing away! Once the tail feathers were in place we glued the tan colored feathers along the neck and head. Next along came the eyeball. Once that was done we used a reddish brown colored feather for the main part of the body. We finished up with the fake flowers that Emily and Meghan had cut up and sprinkled glitter on. These were special flowers and we put them on the turkey’s wings and at the bottom of his neck.

It looked pretty good, but something was missing. Meghan took a good look at our finished turley and said, "it needs a ribbon!" I agreed and let her take care of the ribbon part of the project. Meghan can make ribbons with the best of them!

The next morning it was my turn to drop Emily off at school. It was raining so we had to be careful with our turkey. We carried it inside with some plastic over it to protect from the rain. I handed it to the teacher and her words were something that I will never forget. All she said was OMG! OMG, OMG! She must have said that about 4 or 5 times. That was good enough for me!

Emily loved it too and it was fun to do as a family. In a way I was getting back at my childhood and making up for those days when I didn't know any better. It was only a "turkey" but it was fun to make!

Have fun with your kids and it's ok to cheat a little!!