Turkey Tin Hidden Messages

This Thanksgiving I wanted to make a turkey that shows what my children are thankful for.  I also wanted to show other members of our family what my children are thankful for about them.  Since my Dad and Step Mom live 12 hours away from us and we don't get to see them that often I wanted to do this activity for them first.  During our visits the kids have so much fun with their Grandparents and they leave taking alot of memories with them.  Here's what we did:

Somewhere along the line my husband got his hands on a bunch and I mean a bunch of these cute little tins.  I thought the tin would be perfect for this craft because I could hide our thankful messages inside.  First, I covered the tin with brown book cover craft paper.  I would have used regular brown construction paper but had none on hand so I opted for the next best thing.  School glue worked fine for this part.

Then I cut out feathers from construction paper and wrote on them what the kids told me they were thankful for, in their lives.  I really loved this part!  And I'm seriously not bragging when I say my son wanted to keep telling me what he was thankful for but we ran out of room.  That's ok as we have another activity that starts this week where he will have 25 days worth of writing things he's thankful for!  Anywho, back to this activity.... I used a hot glue gun to stick on the feathers, added some googly eyes, nose, wattle and feet.

Making our turkey was fun but this next part was the hilite!  I asked my kids what they were thankful for, about their Grandparents and each of them started sharing right away! It was really great hearing what they are thankful for about them!  It warmed my heart so much and I know it will for my parents too!  Ok, so I wrote what the kids were thankful for about their Grandparents on a piece of white paper.  Once finished I cut out pieces of the paper and asked each of my children to sign their names to it. This way when their Grandparents read the little notes they will know which child said what.  I had my 9 year old write his name underneath the message and had my 4 year old write her name on the back.  With just learning how to write her name her letters tend to be big so this gave her more space.  I folded up all the thankful messages and put them inside the turkey tin.

Now my parents will have a cute little turkey that they can display through Thanksgiving and then read their Thanksgiving messages on Thanksgiving day or whenever they choose. I thought this was a nice way to include my children's grandparents in on our Thanksgiving holiday even though we will not get to physically spend it with them.

One last thing I did before shipping off our turkey was adding the initial of my children's names on the backs of the feathers.  I wanted their Grandparents to know which child shared what they are thankful for and thought this would help.

Materials needed to make your own turkey tin:

• Tin or cup/container with a lid
• Brown construction paper or brown craft/book cover paper
• Various color construction paper
• Foam pieces for turkey's face (beak and wattle) or you can use construction paper
• Googly eyes
• White paper
• Crayon and/or Marker

How do you include far away relatives into your holidays ? I would love to hear about it, please share in the comments below!