A simple and classic keepsake craft for Thanksgiving!
But did you know it not only is an art project, but it also includes sensory, math, and social/emotional concepts?
Starting with math – you can easily include counting/quantity (how many colors?), classification (what colors are these?) and color mixing (if I mix the red and yellow, what color will it make?).
For this turkey, I used brown, yellow, and red!
Swirl it around a bit so the colors are mixed.
Here comes sensory!
Let them squish their fingers in the paint before you make the handprints and talk about what it feels like – is it hard or soft? warm or cold? (both are math questions too, woot!)
Make the handprints and let them dry.
Then comes the footprint! More sensory!
For tips and tricks for the BEST footprint check out this post
As I include in my footprint post, footprints give an opportunity to have some nice one-on-one time and make it fun! I always wash their feet in our sink and call it a “pedicure” 😀 giving them a nice foot massage – they LOVE this!
And because of this special moment we share, I have therefore included social/emotional!
And not only have they gotten that special time (often hard to come by with a full class!), once the project is done they get to see a picture made entirely of “my hands!” “my feet!” So many students have gone home proudly declaring “I paint my hands! I paint my feet!” That is social/emotional!
Simple, right?
I didn’t go any further with this project this year than to add some googly eyes and orange paint for a beak – but you can easily cut it out and glue to a Thanksgiving card, or use cardstock for the paper and make a simple stand-alone decoration (instructions for a really solid origami paper stand click here) or add a popsicle stick to the back!
There you have it!
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