Discover 6 charming felt turkey activities perfect for toddlers and preschoolers! These adorable November-themed projects make early learning fun, focusing on essential skills like color recognition, counting, pattern creation, and shape sorting.
It’s Thanksgiving again, and this time of year always makes me so nostalgic! Beyond the food, family time, and celebrating a day of gratitude, one of the holiday details that has always stuck with me is the magically festive table settings my family put together.
So much loving attention went into the cute handmade touches, making sure the kids’ table was especially fun with little Thanksgiving writing prompts, holiday-themed hands-on play, and lovely handmade fall decorations.
In homage to those wonderful memories of Thanksgiving’s past, I thought I’d try to re-create the timeless turkey crafts we used to enjoy with a build-your-own colorful felt turkey!
With simple materials and an easy setup, these cozy turkeys are great to use as Thanksgiving table play, for classrooms, homeschooling, family time, or even take-home favors. I’ve included six easy activity ideas to offer your kids all kinds of turkey-themed learning through play – from sensory exploration to storytelling.
For more eco-friendly fun with reusable materials and a simple template try our felt four seasons tree activity, felt gingerbread cookies, a DIY felt corn weaving activity, or dressed-up winter peg dolls you can save for many Thanksgivings to come.
To make your own DIY felt turkeys, you’ll need:
Note: We prefer to shop locally or use what we have at home, but this list contains Woodpeckers Crafts, Etsy, Blick Art Materials, Bookshop.org and/or Amazon affiliate links for reference. As affiliates (and Amazon Associates), we make a small commission on qualifying purchases.*
BASIC SUPPLIES:
- Felt in a variety of colors (I like buying customizable sheet sets like this, this, or this eco-friendly 40-color felt pack has the perfect variety)
- Scissors
- Tailor’s chalk (like this), a fabric marker, or a permanent marker
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES:
- Our printable PDF turkey templates
- Googly eyes, pipe cleaners, sequins, or other decorations
- Craft glue
- Velcro (I’ve found this snag-free velcro works well with felt)
- Cardboard (if you’d like a hard backing for your turkey or feathers)
Turkey Template
$0.99
A 1-page PDF template optimized for black & white printing.
Build-Your-Own Felt Turkey Activity – DIY Instructions:
Print, cut out, and trace our turkey templates.
Begin by downloading, printing, and cutting out our felt turkey template. You can trace the template onto felt using a marker or chalk.
Cut your turkey and feathers out of colorful felt pieces.
Cut your turkey pieces and feathers out of different colors of felt. Experiment with using different color palettes to make your turkeys extra colorful or allow kids lots of choices or color-learning options. 
Tip: You can substitute colorful cardstock for felt if you’d prefer! Print the templates directly on the cardstock (white or colors) for a quick setup that doesn’t require any extra tracing or cutting.
Add details to your turkey.
Use fabric glue to add details like a beak, gobble, and small felt circle eyes onto your turkey’s main body (you can use googly eyes instead if you prefer).
These sweet little turkeys make wonderful Montessori-style color and counting learning tools for kids. Using a variety of bright colors and two different sizes ensures endless creative color combinations and pattern-making opportunities.
Six Ways to Use Your Felt Turkey Pieces With Toddlers and Preschoolers for Early Learning Activities
1. Turkey Color Matching
Print out a few copies of our turkey templates, color in feathers, and glue them to a piece of cardstock or cardboard to create. Have children match colored feathers to corresponding colored turkey cards, reinforcing color recognition.
Take this a step further by going on a “turkey hue hunt”! Scatter matching colored feathers around the room and invite kids to find feathers and attach them to the correct spots on the turkey.
2. November Counting Practice
Ask kids to add a specific number of feathers to the turkey, helping develop basic numeracy skills.
To give this activity a fun November slant, cut out paper “gratitude feathers” in various fall colors. Kids can count out a specific number of feathers (e.g., “Let’s add 3 things we’re thankful for!”), write or draw on each one with help, then attach each to their paper turkeys.
3. Turkey Pattern Creation
Guide children to create repeating turkey tail patterns (purple-blue-purple-blue, for example), introducing early math and coding concepts.
You can create a variety of turkey pattern cards by printing copies of our turkey printable onto cardstock and coloring in various patterns.
4. Fine Motor Skills and Sensory Exploration
Play a sensory game of pin-the-tail on Tom Turkey! Print your turkey template at a large size by altering the scale in your printer settings. Cut out feathers from various textured materials (e.g., smooth faux leather, bumpy sandpaper, fuzzy faux shearling) and glue velcro dots to the back.
Glue your large felt turkey body onto a felt banner and start the game!
5. November Felt Storyboards or Storytelling
Invite kids to create and act out a short Thanksgiving story. You can create a simple backdrop of a farm or forest, Using the felt turkeys as puppets or characters.
Add autumn-themed felt props (like leaves, gourds, or acorns) with our fall template bundle!
6. Holiday-Themed Counting and Pattern-Making
Holiday bonus: These feathers turn into perfectly festive holiday light bulbs! Cut a piece of green yarn, double it over, and tie a knot at the end. Lay it on paper and let kids add lights to create fun patterns or different color combinations of light strings.
However you choose to play with your turkeys, we wish you a peaceful and relaxing holiday filled with love. ❤️
*A note about affiliate links: We strive to use simple, earth-friendly supplies that can be purchased locally whenever we can, but sometimes we find the best universally available options, a rare eco-friendly find, or a niche product only available on Blick Art Materials, Amazon, Etsy, or Woodpeckers Crafts. When included in our supply list, these products are affiliate links, and if you click through to make a purchase we receive a small commission that helps us re-order these supplies!
GETTING READY TO TRY this?
I love seeing all the ways people make these ideas their own! If you're sharing the results of one of our projects, mention or tag me with @barleyandbirch, or share it in the comments of one of our Pinterest project pins.
It works very well for me