Cutting Practice Thanksgiving Wreath

Whenever we do a craft ( not open ended art) I try to mix in a few things. Usually some color or letter recognition, maybe some tricky fine motor  skill development with small bits and pieces, or cutting practice! This Thanksgiving craft is all about cutting practice. For little guys it’s all about getting the grip right, hand position, and control.  Cutting isn’t something that most kids have to be tricked into doing many love it and our Cutting Station is a great idea for those kids.

Gather your materials. You will need a paper plate for each wreath, some glue, construction paper ( this is a great craft for scraps!), some glitter glue ( it’s not really a craft according to my daughter unless it has glitter), and some raffia.

Start by cutting the middle out of the paper plates and cutting the construction paper into easier to hold strips. Older kids can do this themselves.

Start cutting!  My son joined in on the fun too.

When they have cut to their heart’s content add some glue.

Add the paper in a pattern or randomly.

Time for glitter glue. This glitter glue is great because it doesn’t get everywhere like regular loose glitter but it does take a long time to dry if you make globs.

Add some raffia-ish ribbon and hang it up.

 

Books About Thanksgiving

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A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman is such a cute and funny book about a town that needs a turkey and the hilarious lengths they go to to find one. The town is sadly outwitted by the turkey and end up eating shredded wheat for thanksgiving. The illustrations kept my little man interested when he was a toddler but he only started understanding the dark humor at around 4. I love this book because of the humor makes me giggle. My son was a little off put by the idea of the towns folk eating the turkey and was relived when he escaped before they shoved him in the oven. I like that he is starting to understand that the meat he eats is actually a cooked animal, we take that for granted but for many young kids this is a huge realization!

Two Bad Pilgrims by Kathryn Lasky is a fantastic book that some parents might not like but kids will love it and learn a lot in the process.  It’s about two boys who really did sail abroad the Mayflower and whose behavior really was bad.  There is a ton of not usually shared information about Pilgrims in this book and as someone who studied colonial history I am in LOVE with this book. The format is a mix of non-fiction and comic strip like narrative. I would read it to kids 5 and older although younger children might like just the narrative. There is a ton of info in this book and it would be a wonderful tool to talk about how history books don’t always tell the whole story.

Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey was such a treat to read. It’s a reworking of the classic Christmas poem, with a Thanksgiving twist.  A bus full of kids head off to the turkey farm the day before Thanksgiving and are immediately enamored with the birds. When a child asks the farmer what the axe by the door is for…well let’s just say the truth is told and the kids fall apart. They don’t stay down for long though, the kids outsmart the farmer and their teacher to save the turkeys from the axe. Somehow the author finds a way to make the possible slaughter of these happy friendly, named turkey’s funny. My son was giggling while I was kinda nervous that they’d get the axe! Great rhymes throughout this hilarious book!

 

For more Thanksgiving books check out our round up of Thanksgiving books by clicking on the image below.