Thursday 13 – easy green Thanksgiving décor
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You will need:
One pumpkin
One empty, clean orange juice jug
Template
One overhead projector film
Washable pen
Sharpie
Scissors
Large piece of waster paper or newspaper
An exacto knife
A cleaver
Chopping board
Sandpaper
Feathers, glue and glitter of your choice
A captivating activity
A thankful of patience
Whilst it might be fun to do this craft with your children, due to the prevalence of lethal weapons, it may be better to prepare all the parts in advance for them to decorate and assemble.
1. Take a large piece of paper and outline a tail feather shape.
[this is last years with the feathers already attached which makes it easier to see]
Alternatively, make outlines of your children’s hands in advance to add the personal touch. You can use more than one tail/ hand print if your children and their hands are very small, as stumpy tailed turkeys are not popular.
2. Cut the ‘film’ to match, set aside to decorate with children.
3. Split the juice carton in two, vertically, with an exacto knife. Take care to keep the handle part separate to form the neck and head.
4. Cut the two side panels into wing shapes
5. Fashion a neck and head out of the handle hook.
6. Mark the ‘face’ with a sharpie or leave this step to a child that likes to draw faces.
7. Take the sandpaper and remove all sharp snags from the pieces.
8. Take the washable pen and mark four cuts on the pumpkin, neck and tail at the ‘front/back/ top.
9. Mark two wing cuts at a semi vertical angle.
10. Take the cleaver and cut into the markings.
11. Insert each piece to check whether you have a good fit so that smaller hands than yours can easily push the pieces into the holes. If not, take time to enlarge the holes now before their pieces are decorated. Remove all lethal weapons from the visual scene.
12. On completion, gather children into a large open area with all decorating supplies available in duplicate. Forewarn children that glue takes time to dry, that they are at stage one and that stage two, assembly, will be later. It is now essential to minimize the use of glue. Glue use is exponentially related to drying time. Put visual timer in prominent position out of the line of fire of escaping glue, to illustrate that the passage of time is indeed despicably slow.
13. After the decorating stage, dig out the captivating activity, otherwise known as the ‘kill time whilst glue dries’ activity. Do not attempt clean up at this time. This time must be devoted to the captivating activity in another room during the glue drying. Now you will discover whether your captivating activity time is closely matched to your glue drying time. Do not attempt to speed up the process by use of the microwave or a hairdryer, as both these options are deemed cruel and unusual punishment to turkeys.
After approximately 30 minutes, assuming that you gained control of glue usage earlier, the turkey parts should be dry enough to handle. You will now learn if your choice of ‘captivating alternative activity’ was sufficiently captivating or too captivating. You will already know if it was insufficiently captivating, as you will be doing your captivating activity alone. If your activity was too captivating your children will continue the new activity. On no account will they now leave that activity to return to the previous activity to complete the turkeys. On the 57th occasion that someone asks ‘why?’ resist the fowl urge to shout ‘because it’s fun!’
Time to wattle off and recharge the patience battery!
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