Turkey in Disguise Activities

Every year at my daughter’s school I think it’s the second or third graders do an activity where they have to disguise a turkey to keep it from being eaten at Thanksgiving. The kids draw the disguise and write a little bit about why they thing that would be an effective way for the turkey to hide. There were some really creative ideas, including one year one was dressed as an eraser for some reason?

If this is an activity you’d like to try with kids in the classroom or at home, check out these turkey in disguise printables to get you started.

If you want to keep it totally basic you can just print out a turkey in disguise coloring sheet like these from The Best Ideas for Kids. There are a few different options kids can use to decorate and they write in what their turkey is disguised as.

My Bored Toddler has a similar printable that just asks what the child will cover the turkey with to hide it. This one would be fun to use in a plastic sleeve or laminated, then you can use it with playdough, cover it with leaves or glass gems or draw on it and use it again.

Easy Peasy and Fun has a paper doll-inspired take on turkey disguises, with printable costumes you can take on and off to hide your turkey quickly. The disguise is attached to the regular turkey with a tab so you can flip it up and down to have a regular turkey or one disguised as a peacock, football player, astronaut and more. This one includes a writing activity so students can explain why they picked the disguise they did and why they think it will work.

Red Ted Art has a set of 12 disguises you can buy (or you can get six random costumes for free) that come in both color and black and white. Kids can just assemble the turkeys or they can color them and then put them together. The set includes a basketball player, pirate, chef, unicorn, mermaid, robot and more. It doesn’t include a writing activity but you could also have kids write about which character they picked and why.

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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