Turkey Feather Color Match
Happy November! Had to share this cute, easy, fun, and functional little turkey friend I made with you all to help kick off the Thanksgiving season!
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This little turkey head was made from brown cardstock paper. I made it years ago and at the time either colored masking tape didn’t exist, or I just didn’t know about it because I actually cut and colored pieces of regular masking tape with markers to line the turkeys back. Now since I’m so much older and wiser (please sense the sarcasm), I have this amazing stuff (colored painters’ tape) that I could easily use instead.
I chose to laminate this little guy so that I could use him for years to come- which we have! This step is not necessary, though, especially if you use a thicker paper. I used the same markers that I used to color my masking tape, to also color the clothespins (if you have an older kiddo that you trust with markers you could have them help with this step). You could also choose to go ahead and save yourself time here and order some colored clothespins!
The clothespins were still pretty tricky for Kade's little fingers to manipulate when we originally did this activity, but we gave it a shot anyway. He did better with pulling the clothes pins off and putting them back in the tub- equally as fun (if not more) for his age (I want to say he was just a little over 2.5 years old). I also tried having him just set the clothespin feathers on top of the corresponding colors rather than actually clipping them on. We did a lot of "Can you show me where to put the green clothespin?" Or "Can you find me a red clothespin?” to adjust the focus more on to the color recognition.
Squeezing clothespins is a great way to strengthen the fine motor muscles in your child's fingers. This will eventually help with learning every-day tasks such as buttoning clothes, zipping a coat, tying shoes, and will help with pencil grip and handwriting when the time comes. You could add more colors, and use this for patterning practice with older kiddos too!
Because I love pairing a good themed book along with our activities, I wanted to share a few of our favorite Thanksgiving books with you! Check your local library for these titles, or click the links to check them out on Amazon!
This Little Turkey
Be Thankful, Pout Pout Fish
Turkey Tumble
’Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey
The Best Thanksgiving Ever
Bear Says Thanks
How to Catch a Turkey
Thankful
Do you still do pumpkins after Halloween? If so, you’re going to want to check out this post with 12 Simple Pumpkin Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers!
Looking for more activity ideas for little ones? Check out these two popular post with
30+ Activities for 1-2 Year Olds and
30+ Activities for 2-3 Year Olds
Finally, if you don’t already have it, make sure you check out our fall-themed printable activity book with 7 different themes and over 60 different play-based learning activities! You can find the activity book listed in the Oh Hey Let’s Play Shop.
