Halloween Pumpkin Dilemma? Let’s talk turkey

We are not pumpkin carvers or pumpkin eaters, so buying pumpkins in the fall is probably a silly thing for us to do. But we do it. The boys love to decorate them and they do make the house look more festive for Halloween. But then what do you do with them? It seems wasteful to throw them away if they are still good. Do you also have decorative pumpkins that you bought for Halloween, but don’t know what to do with them now that Halloween has come and gone? Here is a fun little craft for kids to do to get more use out of them just in time for Thanksgiving.

Turkey Pumpkins

Materials

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Paper Plates (or something to pour the paint and glue for little ones)

I have two kids, so the instructions are for two pumpkins (have to keep it even to avoid conflict).

First I cut out 4 white ovals and four smaller black circles to make eyes, four brown wings, two elongated heart shapes to make the wattles and a bunch of different colored feathers. They don’t have to be perfect (I know mine aren’t), in fact, the sillier the better.

I squared off a piece of yellow paper, folded it diagonally two times and cut out 4 triangles. I then rolled each triangle and taped it as a tube with a pointed end. Then I put two tubes together to make the beak. On the non-pointy side, I cut several slits and folded them over to the outside so that you can use those ends to attach to the pumpkins. I finished them off by inserting their wattles.

I did the same thing with black paper, but made regular tubes out of rectangles instead of triangles. After I taped up the tubes, I cut slits and folded them over the same way to make it easier to attach them. I have a corner punch to round out corners (not sure what it’s called) so I used out to make the hat a little rounder.  You don’t have to do that, though, I just like using it. 🙂 I cut a little strip of brown for decoration and voila, a pilgrim hat!

I took my little feathers, made a fan and stapled them together so the kids didn’t have to mess with that. I forgot to take a picture before, but here is the finished tail.

That is all the work you need to do.

I set up their craft area, so when they came inside from playing they could see everything ready to go.

I let the kids paint their pumpkins however they wanted. Once they were dry, I gave them all of the cutouts and glue. They had a blast making their turkeys come to life. And I must say, they came out SO cute!

There you have it, another use for your pumpkins. I hope you liked my little craft. Happy Turkey!

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