Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids

Whether you have a classroom full of children anxious to celebrate Thanksgiving or you have your own little ones at home, you will have a blast making this paper plate turkey hat craft for kids.

Tis’ the season for Thanksgiving crafts. If you are looking for more ideas, check out my gobbling plastic cup turkey and my handprint turkey placemats.

I had my sweet nephew model the hat because he’s too cute. I might need to hire him more often. It only cost me a few Swedish Fish.

Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids

To accomplish this craft, kids will need to have scissor skills. My 3rd grader was able to easily achieve it, but I imagine kindergarteners would be successful also with a bit of assistance.

Cutting, gluing and folding are the combined abilities children will need to make this paper plate turkey hat craft.

Included in this tutorial is a free feather and turkey body printable that can become a template for you (see materials list).

Materials Needed to Make this Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids

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• Brown Paper Plates – These are 9.5 inch plates I found at the Party City. I couldn’t find an equivalent on Amazon for you.
• Colored Stock Paper
• 1″ Craft Google Eyes
• Craft Foam in Yellow and Red
• Stapler
• Glue or Glue Dots
• Tape
• Scissors
• X-Acto Knife
• Free Turkey Body Template Printable
• Free Turkey Feather Template Printable

Note: I have been moving away from white glue. It takes so long to dry, so unless a paper project is laying flat, it isn’t super convenient. For this project, I chose to do stapler, tape and glue dots.

 Pacon Card Stock, Colorful Jumbo Assortment, 10 Colors,  8-1/2 Floranea 60 Pcs 1 Inch Wiggle Eyes Self Adhesive Pack Round Sew on Small Googly Eyes Stickers for Craft Scrapbooking Supplies Classroom Kids Children Handmade Project Decoration 70 Pcs EVA Foam Handicraft Sheets (11 Swingline Stapler, 747 Iconic Desktop Stapler, 25 Sheet Capacity, Rio Red (74736) Elmers Washable No-Run School Glue, 4 oz, 1 Bottle (E304) - Pack of 2 Glue Dots Craft Dots Adhesive, 1/2 Inch, Clear, Roll of 200 X-Acto #1 Precision Knife | Z-Series, Craft Knife, with Safety Cap, #11 Fine Point Blade, Easy-Change Blade System Scissors, 8
 

How to Make Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids

It’s great to do this craft right alongside your kids. They might need help with a bit of the project, depending on the age.

If you are doing a bunch of them, I would actually encourage you to cut the turkey body out of the paper plate ahead of time using an X-Acto knife. Kids should not use an X-Acto knife! Have them use scissors only. Scissors, on the plate, are hard to use and do not give a clean cut. I’ll show an example of the one my son cut out below:

As you can see, it can be done, but it just looks much nicer when an adult can prepare these with an X-Acto knife as shown below.

Turkey Hat Step by Step Tutorial

Video tutorial to follow.

• Print out the turkey body printable (link in materials list) onto stock paper.
• Cut out the template.
• Line the template along the edge of the interior circle edge of the paper plate (see above) and trace.
• Using an X-Acto knife (prepped ahead by adult only – best method) or scissors (kid appropriate – harder to do and make nice), cut out the negative space of the paper plate so the turkey body remains.
• Cut out a yellow foam triangle and red foam gobble.
• Affix the foam nose, gobble and craft wiggle eyes with white glue. Allow to dry. Glue dots are another alternative if you don’t want to wait for dry time (my preference).
• Print out the printable turkey feathers onto colored stock paper. Cut out the feathers. Some kids might be able to stack multiple papers on top of each other and cut out many at a time as shown in the video below.

• Fold feathers in half, keeping the printed edge on the back for neatness.
• Using tape, tape together paper feathers as shown.
• Cut a section out of the back portion of the paper plate.
• Staple feathers to one side. Note that I put the sharper edge of the staple on the outside so that it wouldn’t scrape or be uncomfortable on the child’s head.
• Measure turkey hat on child’s head to find appropriate fit.
• Staple the other half of the feathers in place.

Video Tutorial Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids

I have made video tutorial of this Paper Plate Turkey Hat Craft for Kids for your convenience. It quickly shows the step by step process and ease of creating this craft.

I hope you and your little turkeys enjoy this craft as much as we did. I find this projects so memorable, and the cute pictures you get afterward become a keepsake of the fun you had together.

Want More Thanksgiving Craft Ideas?

Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Craft

Thankfulness Tree

Stained Glass Footprint Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving to you all. If you want to be intentional about teaching GRATITUDE this season, make sure you check out my character development series and click on the tab about teaching thankfulness to kids.