Kids' Easy How to Make Thanksgiving Pine Cone Turkey Place Cards
Easy-To-Make Turkey Place Cards
Family Treasures for Future Thanksgivings
It is great to participate in large, family-bonding big holiday meals. This craft idea can help you by engaging the younger members of the family in an activity which contributes to the table decoration, and keeps them productively occupied while the final food preparation occurs.
Making these place cards can be completed quickly because no glue is involved, so there is no drying time. Therefore, this art activity can be done on the day of the feast by all the youngsters.
Older cousins or siblings can lend a helping hand to younger ones.
Furthermore, if you are at a household with young children the family probably owns many of the supplies needed, so no great expense will be incurred.
In my area, it is easy to get pine cones at Thanksgiving time. If this is not the case for you, an arts and crafts store may carry them.
The correct use of scissors and staying safe by not eating playdough or other materials may require supervision, but most children who are school age will be just fine working on these place card holders.
Furthermore, the great-aunts and grandparents will be absolutely delighted at the creativity and love poured into these turkeys.
Supplies
- Notecards 3 x 5 inches or 4 by 6 inches (or heavy weight paper cut to that size)
- Scissors and a pencil
- Playdough (homemade playdough or store-bought) about a walnut-sized amount for each place card holder
- Markers, crayons, colored pencils
- Pine cones, cleaned as much as possible
Step 1
Take one pine cone and one piece of paper or one notecard. If the note card is lined, turn it to the unlined side.
Place the pine cone on it as shown in the photo, so that one inch of the cone extends beyond the paper's short end.
Use a pencil to mark the spot where the other end is on the paper.
Fold the paper at that line so that the extra paper stands up in the air as the future turkey tail.
Step 2
The part of the card still flat on the table will eventually have the pine cone attached to it.
Not all the paper is needed, so cut off each corner. The result is a triangle base starting from the fold on each side out to the short edge of the paper. See the photo.
The upright part of the card will be the turkey tail. Cut it in a scallop shell shape.
Step 3
On the turkey tail, print the name of a dinner guest.
Use colored pencils, crayons, markers etc. to color the tail.
There are no rules. This is about creativity, not realistic representation.
Step 4
Get a walnut-sized ball of the playdough or wall tacky material.
Pull it into two UNEQUAL parts. The smaller part should be rolled into a ball smaller than the size of a cherry. This is what you use as the adhesive to stick the back of the pine cone onto the triangle at the fold of the tail. See the photo.
Then make a head and neck with the remaining playdough. This is your basic playdough snake about two inches long.
If you narrow the bottom of the neck into a point, inserting into the pine cone is easier.
Ta-Dah!
These look equally grand at the adults' table and at the kids' table.
Be sure to take pictures before the meal begins!
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Family Bonding
Both the children and adults bound from contributing to a family event with the others.
It is this sort of activity which forms fond memories for years to come.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2011 Maren Elizabeth Morgan
