Not only do mandarins make the perfect healthy snacks, they also make the perfect Thanksgiving craft for kids. If you are looking for a fun and easy Thanksgiving craft that doubles as decor, this is your activity.

The great thing about making turkeys out of mandarins is that each turkey can look different with its own personality and style.

For this craft, I do recommend using a hot glue gun so that might limit what toddlers and preschoolers can do. However, they can still be involved by picking out the feathers and eyes for their turkeys. Just leave the hot glue part to the adults. I have been known to burn my fingers from time to time.

How to make a Thanksgiving Craft for kids

Supplies for Kids Thanksgiving Turkey Craft

Halos Mandarins
Googly eyes
Hot Glue Gun with glue sticks (You can try glue-dots, but they didn’t work great for my supplies. Wasn’t a strong enough hold)
Foam Paper (Yellow and Brown)
Felt (Red)
Feathers

Instructions

Plug in glue gun. Select a Halos mandarin. Glue eyes on the front of the mandarin.

Cut a triangle of the yellow foam paper for the turkey’s beak.

Cut a piece of red felt to look like the gobbler. I free-handed it. Don’t stress out if it isn’t perfect. From far away a gobbler looks like a gobbler. Trust me.

Glue the beak and gobbler together below the eyes on the mandarin.

There are two ways you can decorate the turkey’s feathers. One way is to glue different real feathers on the back of the mandarin. The other way is to cut out feathers using the brown and yellow foam paper. I cut out a larger version of brown feather and then glued a smaller version of yellow feathers on top. Again, I free-handed the design. If you are a perfectionist, you can trace out feathers using a template. You can find several feather templates by a simple Google search.

Let the glue dry and your turkeys are complete. If you want an activity that toddlers can do without you, consider buying stickers. They will use their fine motor skills by placing the stickers on each mandarin. You know have our own handprint turkey craft complete!