How to Make a Tin Can Turkey for Thanksgiving

By Amber Ortega on November 19th, 2008

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Tin Can Turkey

Mom is busy planning, decorating, cleaning, cooking and getting ready for a house full of guests for Thanksgiving.  Where are the kids you ask?  In the kitchen asking mom to help out or they are terrorizing each other.  Either way, the best way to keep the kids occupied is to give them a project to work on.

A tin can turkey is a great project for the kids, keeping them busy, reusing items that could possibly be thrown away and best of all, saving mom’s sanity.

Here is what you will need:

• An empty tin can
• Sandpaper
• Felt or construction paper* in the following colors: brown, tan, orange, red, yellow/gold, black
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Hot Glue

*although felt works better, construction paper may be used as a cheaper alternative

Now onto the fun part:

Using a piece of sandpaper, ensure the tin can is free of sharp edges.  Wash the can entirely, removing label and any glue you may find.  Allow the can to fully dry before beginning to piece your adorable turkey together.

Using the clean, dry tin can as a pattern, lay it on its side and trim the brown felt or construction paper about an inch larger on each side of the can, including the top, bottom and side.  Use your glue to adhere the brown felt/paper to the can.

You will now want to cut feather shapes out of the red, yellow and orange felt or paper.  If using felt, you may need to glue it to a piece of card stock to make it sturdy enough to stand on its own.  You can use any many or as little “feathers” as you’d like for the tail, although seven makes it look nice and full.  This is where the child’s creativity comes into play!

The turkey collar is basically a flower shape cut out of tan felt/paper, although a circle of smaller tan feathers also works great! You will then need your turkey head…this is an oval cut out of brown felt/paper.  You will need a red heart to place upside down as the waddle, a yellow beak, orange feet, black eye brows, eyes and white pupils.

After your children have put together their wonderful turkeys, you have a very cute center piece, a place to put plastic ware that will be used during Thanksgiving dinner, or really most anything!  It is a great decoration and way to keep the kids busy and make them very proud that they were able to help out mom!