Thanksgiving Craft for Kids: Turkey Weaving

Can you believe it’s almost Thanksgiving, and almost the end of the year?! I’m pretty sure we were just ringing in the last New Year like a month ago.

This year I’m extra antsy because early next year we’ll have a new little baby boy to snuggle. We can’t wait to meet him, and I am definitely looking forward to not being pregnant anymore haha. But anyway, to get us in the holiday spirit, I came up with this fun little Thanksgiving craft for the kids to do!

Turkey Weaving: a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids | thegrowingcreatives.com

For our craft this year, we made some turkeys. Not just any ol’ turkeys though! These cool little guys were made with sticks and yarn.

This was the perfect activity to practice fine motor skills as each kiddo weaved the yarn in and out of the sticks. J had a more difficult time staying focused and weaving it through (as expected at 18 months) so I helped a lot with his.

Lu did a great job though! She didn’t always line up the yarn evenly, but it still turned out awesome! This is definitely not a craft that needs to be perfect to still look cool.

In addition to both kids trying this out, I made a turkey as well. That way you can see how it’s “supposed” to look versus what it actually looks like when made by a 3.5 year old. It really is pretty simple though!

This was such a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids to do together. I would suggest this for children more preschool-aged and up. All you need to get started is some straight-ish sticks and yarn!

Here’s how we made our turkeys:

1. Gather materials

We went rummaging around the backyard for some sticks and collected as many semi-straight sticks as we could find. Thankfully (?) we had just had some crazy wind shortly before this, so there were lots of branches to choose from.

One of my favorite reasons for using nature in our crafts and activities is that gathering the materials can be part of the fun! As for the yarn, we don’t currently have any yarn bushes in our yard so we did have to grab that at the store.

Aside from that, a couple google eyes, a little orange triangle beak, and a tiny red gizzard will make your turkey complete!

2. Lay out sticks

Break the sticks into the same sized pieces as well as you can. We made ours about 12 inches long and used 8-10 sticks per turkey.

Lay them out so you can get an idea of which ones will bend outwards and then pull them together at the bottom so that the top fans out. The gathered part will be the turkeys “body”.

Turkey Weaving: a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids | thegrowingcreatives.com

3. Wrap “body” to secure

Wrap the yarn around the turkey body to keep it secure. What I did was wrap it around a couple of times, then wrap between each stick several times to keep them from wanting to fall back together. Then wrap around the whole thing horizontally again to give a nicer, unison look.

4. Get weaving!

Weaving from the bottom is a lot easier so you can bring the yarn over the top and pull down each time. When you start a color, tie a knot on the end stick and cut off the excess. Once you are done with that color, tie it at the other end stick. And repeat!

Turkey Weaving: a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids | thegrowingcreatives.com

5. Final touches

Now that the fan of your turkey is done, there’s just a few other little details to add and make it look more like an actual turkey! We glued on 2 little googly eyes, a yellow triangle for a beak, and a tiny red gizzard.

That’s it! We will probably put our new turkey friends out for Thanksgiving decor since they are so cute. The only thing better than a good craft, is one that actually looks nice for displaying afterwards right?? Lol. This was definitely a great Thanksgiving craft for kids to do, and we had a lot of fun with it.

Turkey Weaving: a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids | thegrowingcreatives.com

What crafts are you and your kiddos doing for Thanksgiving this year? If you try out turkey weave out, I’d love to see it! Tag me in any pictures you post on social media, and I’ll be sure to share my favorites on my own page!

By the way, with Thanksgiving coming up, that means Black Friday is quickly approaching as well. Don’t forget to check out my gift guide for creative kids for some Christmas shopping inspo!

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Turkey Weaving: a fun Thanksgiving craft for kids | thegrowingcreatives.com
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32 thoughts on “Thanksgiving Craft for Kids: Turkey Weaving

  1. Very creative and nice addition of the sticks as a natural material. The kids would have fun going outside and gathering their sticks. Reminds me of the God’s eye weaves we used to do when I was a kid with popsicle sticks and yarn.

  2. What an adorable idea! I would never have thought to do this. My son’s still a little young (or maybe I just don’t want to deal with the sticks that would be thrown everywhere!) but I can see him loving this in the future!

  3. This is beautiful and looks like a fun craft activity! My oldest would enjoy doing something like this! Thanks for sharing

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