Thankful Turkey Poem Craft

When I first started homeschooling my daughter a year ago for first grade, I remember having a distinct plan in mind for how I would school her. During our first month of working together, however, it became very clear that my plan was not going to work for us!

I had purchased homeschool curriculum packages for language and math lessons, as well as unit studies to cover other important subjects. However, these studies were much too structured for her. I remember panicking and wondering if I had make a terrible mistake! Surely she would be better off learning from a trained professional!

After talking with other homeschooling parents, I was reassured that I had not made a terrible mistake! In fact, homeschooling allowed for the flexibility of being much more organic, so that parents could “follow the child” in their learning journey. This is one of the many beauties of homeschooling. It was humbling to hear.

My daughter had been in a Montessori preschool since the age of 2 and had been used to learning based on her own interests. I had to learn how she learned. In the coming months, we dove into as many of her interests as possible, while still covering the basics in math, reading and writing in a way that suited her.

One specific topic that we covered, which was a surprise to me, was poetry! We dipped into learning about the different kinds of poetry and read several poems together from various books from the library. It turned out to be a very fun year, filled with lots of learning. It inspired this thankful turkey poem craft, which I hope you enjoy!

Acrostic Poems

This thankful turkey poem craft features an acrostic poem that focuses on a topic or idea. This type of poem begins with a word or phrase that can be a name, thing or some other idea.

Acrostics are good beginner poems for kids because they are fairly easy to write and there is no need to worry about rhyming. The length of each line is also irrelevant.

Generally, a word or phrase is written vertically on a piece of paper in capital letters. Next, the child must brainstorm and creatively think of words or phrases that describe the idea they are working with. The words or phrases must start with one of the capital letters that have been written vertically on their piece of paper. As they think of their words or phrases, they write them next to the capitalized letter they have written vertically, until each line has been completed.

The Meaning of Thanksgiving

Since we are in the midst of the holidays, we chose to focus on Thanksgiving. After all, those present for the first Thanksgiving, had much to be thankful for.

The official first Thanksgiving is said to have taken place in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621. It was a celebration that lasted for three days.

Growing Pains

Prior to this time, the Pilgrims suffered much loss. In September of 1620, 102 passengers boarded the Mayflower in Plymouth, England and started their 66 day journey to the New World. As if the journey itself wasn’t tough enough, they had to endure a brutal winter and much disease upon arrival. Only half of the passengers survived to see the spring.

In March, the surviving settlers were visited by an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. When the Indian visited a second time, he was accompanied by Squanto, another Native American of the Pawtuxet tribe who also spoke English.

Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the Pilgrims forge an alliance with the Wampanoag Indians.

The First Thanksgiving

In November 1621, the Pilgrims’ harvest was so plentiful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast. He even invited a group of Native American allies to join in the festivities.

Although it is unlikely that turkey was the centerpiece of their meal, it is very likely that wild turkey may have been on the table. Wild turkeys were plentiful at the time, as well as duck, geese, swan, crane, gulls and eagles.

Cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, on the other hand, were most likely not present at the first Thanksgiving! Cranberries are very tart and are often preferred to be sweetened. Also, sugar was not only expensive during this time, but it was most likely depleted from the long journey on the Mayflower. It is hypothesized that most of the dishes were prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods, instead.

Thanksgiving Today

Although the first Thanksgiving was a celebration that included a bountiful harvest, it was truly a time infused with religious meaning. It set aside time for prayer and worship, a time to truly be “thankful” for what they had.

Today, much of the religious significance has been lost when celebrating Thanksgiving. Most celebrations focus on cooking and sharing a wondrous meal with family and friends. Turkey has become the centerpiece of every table, accompanied by stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

Additionally, countless households watch a parade or football game, as part of their festivities. Hopefully, Americans across the country are also sharing what they are thankful for. If nothing else, I hope they are thankful for their good food, company and health, as well as time off from school or work!

What Supplies Will I Need?

Since the focus of being thankful on Thanksgiving is often tragically lost, we chose to do this craft to bring it back and focus on what was important to us.

In order to do this thankful turkey poem craft project, you will need the following supplies:

Design Templates (or your own imagination!)
Construction Paper (brown, red, orange, yellow and green)
Glue sticks or Scotch tape
Pencils, Glitter Pens, Metallic Pens or Markers
Googly eyes
Scissors

Most people with kids or grandkids have colored paper, glue, scissors and markers around, so I would imagine that you already have all of these supplies! If not, Walmart or Amazon are great places to stock up.

It is also helpful if you have a printer, so that you can print the design templates right on colored construction paper and simply cut them out.

If you do not have a printer at home, and you have a steady hand, you can make your own free-hand designs. The templates below are my free-hand designs, so it is entirely possible that yours are better than mine!

With that, just let your imaginations run wild!

How Do You Make These Thankful Turkey Poems?

Turkeys

For this craft, we first prepared our turkeys. Following are some templates that I created for the parts of the turkey. It’s as easy as printing these templates on the colored paper described in the title.

Brown Turkey Body Download

Red Feathers Download

Orange Feathers Download

Yellow Feathers Download

Green Feathers Download

The parts of the turkey must then be cut out with scissors and assembled with a glue stick or scotch tape.

Poems

After assembling the turkey, we prepared our poems. We chose to spell out the word “Thankful.” However, the world “Thanks” could be used, for a shorter version.

We wrote each letter of this word vertically on a piece of paper and brainstormed words or phrases that might represent what we were thankful for this Thanksgiving. Here is a list of what we came up with.

Things To Be Thankful For Download

Once each child determined what they were thankful for, they wrote each of their words or phrases on a feather, in the proper order to spell their “idea” in pencil. Once their words or phrases were written to their liking, they traced over the words with metallic or glitter pens for a fancier look.

My kids were so proud of their turkeys and to show off what they were “thankful” for this Thanksgiving. Their turkeys are now proudly displayed on the wall for all to see!

This thankful turkey poem craft has inspired other crafts to come. My children are already brainstorming their next acrostic poem for another upcoming holiday. We’ll see what that brings.

I hope this craft brings poetry to life in your home, and reminds you of what you are thankful for this holiday.