Turkey Breadbasket

Total Time Needed:

1 Hour

If the decision had been Ben Franklin's to make, the wild turkey (a creature he considered more respectable than the bald eagle) would have been named the national bird. Here's a gobbler that's sure to be a winner on Thanksgiving Day.

Materials

• Large wooden spoon
• Tacky glue and a glue stick
• Pair of googly eyes
• Pencil and scissors
• Construction paper in a variety of colors
• Flat wooden craft spoon
• Red marker

• Colorful printed wrapping paper or pages from old magazines
• Waxed paper
• Thin wooden skewers (sold in the kitchen/cooking section of most grocery and department stores)
• Basket to serve as the turkey's body (it should be large enough to fit a loaf of bread or dinner rolls)
• Florists' foam or Styrofoam block (sold at many large craft or department stores) large enough to wedge into the basket
• Cloth dinner napkin

Instructions

1. To create the turkey's head, turn the large wooden spoon so that the back of the bowl becomes the face. Use tacky glue to stick on the googly eyes. Then cut out a yellow construction paper beak and glue it in place.
   
2. For the turkey's wattle, use the marker to color the flat wooden craft spoon red. Glue the wattle onto the face at an angle so that the top slightly overlaps the beak. You can use a pinch-style clothespin to hold the pieces in place until the glue dries.
   
3. From the construction paper, help your kids cut out lots of colored feathers that measure about 10 inches long and 1 3/4 inches across at the widest point. Cut out the same number of feathers from the wrapping paper or magazine pages, then trim them so that they are slightly smaller than the solid-colored ones.
   
4. Cover a flat work surface with waxed paper (this makes for easier cleanup after applying glue), and you're ready to assemble the feathers. For each one, place a construction paper cutout on the waxed paper and set a wooden skewer atop it so that the blunt end is just below the top of the paper and the pointed end extends about 3 inches below it.
   
5. Next, use a glue stick to coat the underside of a printed feather. Then press it, glued side down, onto the construction paper feather, sandwiching the skewer between the 2 layers.
   
6. Wedge the foam block into the basket (trim it first if necessary). Push the spoon handle into one end of the block deep enough to secure it. Stick the feathers into the opposite end. Cover the block with the cloth napkin, and the turkey basket is ready to fill with bread.