I have to admit, the more color a project has the more I love it. And this Thanksgiving turkey? Well, let’s just say I could make them all. day. long.

The best part of this project is that you can whip out your box of paper scraps — or if you are extremely organized — your color-sorted collection of papers, and go on a color wheel treasure hunt.

I made this video for you to show you just how fun and easy this colorful turkey really is. And don’t blame me if you get obsessed with making more than one!

Here’s a video showing you the quick steps:

Download this handy drawing guide before you get started:

Here’s what you’ll need:

– Turkey Body: Paper Scraps for the turkey body (about one 6″ x 7″ piece per student)

– Oil pastels or construction paper crayons

– Scissors & glue stick / white school glue

– 12″ x 9″ black or white paper for background

How to Draw the Symmetrical Turkey Body

Download the Turkey Drawing Guide below and photocopy for students or use it to give you a quick overview of the drawing.

Fold the turkey body paper in half. Using the drawing guide as a reference, draw a half a circle for the head (the folded section of the paper should be the center of the circle) and then draw a larger circle for the body.

Add legs and cut out turkey body. Open up and place body off to the side.

On a small separate sheet of paper. Fold the paper in half and draw a wing. Use the drawing guide as a general reference. Cut out.

Let’s go on a color wheel treasure hunt!

You can keep this part really simple: just organized colored pieces of 6″ x 3″ (approx) paper into trays. OR, you can talk about the color wheel and ask children to find feather shapes for all 7 colors of the rainbow.

Collect all of the paper colors, cut into feather shapes and start decorating.

Using oil pastels or crayons, make designs on the features.

There are a few options here: you can demonstrate a standard feather shape or for children who are older (8+) might enjoy adding a different pattern to each feather.

Putting the colorful turkey together…

Gather up all of the pieces: body, wings (2), feathers (7) and arrange on a colored sheet of paper.

With a light colored crayon, make a dot near the center of the paper. Place the 4th feather (green) in the middle of the paper with the bottom of the feather touching the dot and the top extending off the top edge of the paper.

With the white school glue, draw a line from the got to the side of the paper. Glue feather #1 (red)

Continue the pattern of gluing the feathers towards the dot.

When all the feathers are glued to the background paper, glue the body and wings.

Use extra paper scraps to add the beak and wattle.

Use a black marker to make dots for the eyes. Stand back and swoon over these adorable turkeys.

If you create this lesson in your art room, I’d love to see it!

Included in the November Project Guide this month is our How to Draw a Turkey Thanksgiving Placemat! Click the yellow button below to DOWNLOAD. Add your name and email and we’ll send it to you –

Happy Thanksgiving!