16 Thanksgiving Leaf Turkey Crafts for Kids

Explore 16 Thanksgiving leaf turkey crafts for kids, from handmade cards and keepsakes to festive table decorations.

Turn colorful fall leaves into Thanksgiving turkeys! These leaf turkey crafts for kids include paper projects, a printable template, a handprint keepsake, and a glowing turkey lantern.

Start with a nature walk to gather fallen leaves, then choose a project below. Make a turkey to display at home, give as a Thanksgiving card, or add to your holiday table. For more fun ways to craft with colorful autumn leaves, visit this list of fall nature crafts.

Before You Begin: Gather Your Leaves

Each turkey craft idea included here and shown in the photographs uses fresh autumn leaves to make all or part of the turkey. Look for fallen leaves in different sizes, shapes, and colors. Choose intact, flexible leaves; brittle leaves can crumble as children arrange and glue them.

Gently remove dirt and let damp leaves dry before crafting. For flat paper projects, pressing curled leaves first can make them easier to arrange. See our guide to pressing and preserving fall leaves for preparation options, then follow the directions in your chosen tutorial. Supplies vary by project, so check the full tutorial before setting up.

Leaf Turkey Craft Ideas for Kids

Explore these creative ways to turn fallen leaves into Thanksgiving turkeys, from paper crafts and cards to handprint keepsakes and a glowing lantern. Follow the linked tutorials for supplies and instructions.

Browse the ideas below and follow the linked tutorials for materials and instructions. You might also enjoy these printable Thankful Turkey Placemats.

Leaf Turkey Decorations and Table Crafts:

Decorate your Thanksgiving table with leaf turkey lanterns, homemade placemats, and other festive creations. These projects pair fall leaves with jars, cardboard, or clothespins.

1. Thanksgiving Turkey Leaf Lanterns | Rhythms of Play

Turn mason jars into glowing Thanksgiving decorations with colorful leaves and tissue-paper turkeys. Main supplies include fall leaves, mason jars, tissue paper, Mod Podge or clear-drying white glue, construction paper, googly eyes, scissors, and a foam brush or glue brush. Add a battery-operated tea light for a festive glow.

2. Turkey Leaf Thanksgiving Placemat | Bombshell Bling

Create a turkey collage for the Thanksgiving table, then cover it with clear contact paper or laminate it to make a placemat. Gather fall leaves, background paper, colored paper for the turkey, glue, scissors, and your choice of clear covering.

3. Thanksgiving Fall Leaves Turkey Decorations | Sisters Know Best

Layers of leaves on graduated cardboard circles give this turkey a full, colorful tail. Leaves also cover its head and body, while stems become legs. Supplies include approximately 20 leaves, cardboard, googly eyes, glue, scissors, and a stapler.

4. Clothespin Turkey Leaf Crafts | Our Kid Things

Wooden clothespins become turkey bodies, with broad fall leaves forming their tails. Gather leaves, clothespins, brown cardstock, yellow and red construction paper, small googly eyes, glue, scissors, and a 1-inch circle punch for the heads.

Turkeys Made Mostly from Leaves:

Let the shapes and colors of autumn leaves inspire your turkey’s body, tail, and face. These ideas use mostly natural materials, with a few craft supplies to bring each bird to life.

1. Easy Maple Leaf Thanksgiving Turkey Crafts | Almost Unschoolers

Two maple leaves form a little turkey, with their stems arranged as feet. This simple project uses maple leaves, glue, googly eyes, a construction-paper beak, and a tissue-paper wattle. Follow the linked photograph for inspiration.

2. Thanksgiving Turkey Leaf Craft | thirteensparrows

This detailed leaf collage uses rounded leaves for the turkey’s body and smaller, pointed leaves for its tail, wing, and facial features. Suggested materials for making your own version include assorted fall leaves, small twigs or stems, glue, and sturdy background paper. Visit the original photograph for inspiration.

3. Leaf Turkey Craft Fall Fun | A Lovely Lark

This photo inspiration combines a fan of colorful leaves with smaller leaves for the turkey’s head, body, and beak. Slender stems form its legs. Suggested materials include leaves in several shapes and sizes, leaf stems, glue, background paper, and a fine-tip marker for the eyes.

Paper, Handprint, and Felt Leaf Turkeys:

Combine colorful leaves with paper shapes, a child’s handprint, or soft felt to make a Thanksgiving turkey. Choose from printable templates, homemade cards, and keepsake collages.

1. Autumn Turkey Leaf Craft with Printable Template | Easy Peasy and Fun

Color and cut out a printable turkey, then add a colorful leaf tail. Main supplies include the creator’s turkey template, heavyweight paper, real leaves, coloring supplies, scissors, and glue.

2. Thanksgiving Leaf Turkey Crafts for Kids | Crafty Morning

A brown paper turkey sits in front of a small fan of gathered leaves. Make this simple collage with fall leaves, white background paper, brown, orange, and red paper, googly eyes, glue, and scissors.

3. Leaf Turkey Thanksgiving Card | Toddler Approved

Add a leaf-tailed turkey to folded cardstock, then write a message inside telling someone why you’re thankful for them. Supplies include real or artificial leaves, cardstock, brown, red, and orange construction-paper scraps, googly eyes, glue, scissors, and a pen or markers.

4. Leaf Turkey Handprint Crafts | Sweet Little Ones

A traced handprint becomes the turkey’s body, making this leaf collage a sweet Thanksgiving keepsake. Gather fresh or pressed leaves, white background paper, brown paper or cereal-box cardboard, colored paper scraps, glue, scissors, a pencil, and a black marker.

5. Fall Turkey Leaf Craft | One Little Project

Arrange leaves into a broad tail behind a cardstock turkey with large googly eyes. The project uses a free printable template, white cardstock, brown, orange, and red cardstock, fall leaves, white glue, scissors, a pencil, and large googly eyes.

6. Easy Fall Leaves Turkey Kids Craft | Raising Veggie Lovers

Draw and color a turkey, then place it over layered leaves and add a colored paper border. Supplies include fall leaves, two sheets of white cardstock, colored cardstock or construction paper, markers, crayons or colored pencils, scissors, and glue.

7. Fall Leaf Turkey Craft | Our Kid Things

Build a colorful leaf tail on cardstock, then add a paper turkey made with the creator’s free template. Gather assorted fall leaves, brown, yellow, and red cardstock, a background sheet in your choice of color, small googly eyes, liquid glue, and scissors.

8. Fall Thanksgiving Leaf Turkey | Things to Share and Remember

Combine a soft felt turkey with a fan of real or artificial leaves for a collage with contrasting textures. Main supplies include 9–12 leaves, brown, orange, and red felt, white construction paper, googly eyes, glue, and scissors.

Leaf Turkey Fine Motor Activity:

Turn leaf collecting into a hands-on threading activity. Children poke leaf stems through a cardboard board to give their turkey a colorful tail.

1. Fine Motor Leaf Turkey Craft for Thanksgiving | Little Pine Learners

Children thread leaf stems through holes around a drawn turkey to create its colorful tail. Gather cardboard, leaves with stems, markers, and a sharpened pencil (for an adult to prepare the holes), plus optional tape to secure the stems behind the board. Leave the stems untaped so you can reuse them for a threading activity.

Thanksgiving Turkey Crafts with Real Fall Leaves

Gather a few colorful leaves and invite the kids to make their favorite Thanksgiving leaf turkey craft. Display their creations on the Thanksgiving table, turn a flat turkey collage into a homemade placemat, or hang a lightweight leaf turkey from a DIY Thankful Tree.

If you’re saving a turkey as a keepsake, write your child’s name and the date on the back. It’s a sweet way to remember those little hands and the time spent creating together.

For more ways to celebrate, try making a thankful tree with real autumn leaves or explore these Thanksgiving traditions to enjoy with family and friends.

Learn more about Rhythms of Play on our About page, or meet the creator and author, Nell Regan Kartychok.

Thanksgiving Activities and Ideas:

• Thanksgiving Traditions and Fun Things to Do
• Thankful Turkey Printable Thanksgiving Gratitude Activity
• Gratitude Books for Kids that Inspire Thankfulness
• Thanksgiving Gratitude Activities for Kids
• How to Make Clay Gratitude Leaves
• Best Thanksgiving Thankful Tree Tradition Ideas

Fall Leaf Arts and Crafts:

• Marbled Clay Autumn Leaves
• Fall Leaves Watercolor Resist Art
• Best Fall Art Projects for Kids (Includes a section on Fall Leaf Art Projects)

Fall Leaf Crafts that use Natural Autumn Leaves:

• Fall Leaf Crown Craft
• How to Press and Preserve Fall Leaves
• Fall Leaf Sewing
• Watercolor and Fall Leaf Art Projects for Kids
• Best Fall Nature Crafts for Kids (Includes a section on fall leaf crafts for kids)
• Leaf Baby Craft