Turkey Time!

Pin It I'm going to take you back in time a few weeks.

I have the joy of being part of an amazing playgroup. We get together at least once a week to have fun, and the kids seem to enjoy it, too!

The Monday before Thanksgiving, we started up a new thing - Toddler Book Club. Adults have book club, so why not toddlers?

The structure is simple. Every other week (because holiday season is upon us!) a mom and toddler hosts. They choose a story to share, and base a snack and project around that story.

Week 1: Our house.
Theme: Thanksgiving
Book: The Night Before Thanksgiving
Craft: Turkey Hand Paintings
Snack: Turkey rice krispy treats

I didn't get any pictures of the painting in action (something about 10 kids under 4 with paint in your house put photos at the back of my mind...) but basically I had precut turkey bodies (or peanut shapes) and beaks. The kids used their hands to make the feathers, then glued the bodies and beaks on.

Sort of like this, which I borrowed from Redesign Revolution.

Then we moved on to creating snack. I had prepared Rice Krispie Treats using cocoa cereal, and shaping them into turkey bodies. If you are going to use pretzels for some of the treats, stick them in when the treats start to cool, but not before they completely solidify.

Then I used a marshmallow on a toothpick for the head. I cut a slit (use kitchen shears) into each marshmallow and shove a candy corn in. Some blue frosting eyes and we're good to go.

We also used toothpicks to make feathers out of some things that didn't fit on pretzels.
Our feathers consisted of:
grapes
Fruit Loops
Cheerios
rasins
gummy rings

You could add other fruits to make this healthier. (In fact, I got this idea from something on Pinterest that used an apple instead of rice krispy treats. Sure, it would have been healthier, but that wasn't my objective here. It's a Monday morning. Have fun, kids.)

Once the turkeys had moved from the decoration stage to the consumption stage, I took advantage of the seconds between happy silence and sugar rush to read the story.

All in all, a pretty good Monday morning!


I know what you're thinking. "I would have gone to more book club meetings if they were that awesome."