Let’s make a coffee filter turkey craft with a spin art paint technique that kids of all ages will love and makes a great preschool turkey craft. This coffee filter turkey is a great Thanksgiving arts and craft idea at home or in the classroom.

Coffee Filter Turkey Craft

This Thanksgiving craft is not only super fun, but it is easy! Plus, your little one will get to paint, but with minimal mess which makes this the perfect Thanksgiving preschool craft.

Related: Over 175 Fun & Easy Thanksgiving crafts for kids

I dare say this easy Thanksgiving craft is even toddler friendly. You will use a colored coffee filter as the turkey body! The body be made from dry coffee filters that will have brown craft paint, green paint, whatever colors you want!

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Supplies Needed For Coffee Filter Turkey

• Salad Spinner or a spinning art machine for kids to make spin art
• Paint of various colors
• Coffee Filters
• Water in a small bowl
• Construction Paper
• Glue
• Googly Eyes (optional)
• Area to dry the painted coffee filters

Instructions for Coffee Filter Turkey Craft

Step 1

In a small bowl, add a couple of spoonfuls or globs of a single color to a little water and swished it around. You can start by just covering the paint with water. You want a colorful, just slightly watery consistency of the paint.

Step 2

Mix until the water and the paint has blended.

Step 3

Place a coffee filter in the bottom of the salad spinner or art spinner machine.

Step 4

Add the watered down paint mixture on top of the coffee filter sitting in the salad spinner sparingly at first. You can always add more paint! Their will be a variety of patterns each time you make one of these coffee filter crafts.

Step 5

Push the spinner button and watch the paint fly. My son loves to make the spinner go faster and faster.

Step 6

We repeated the process above a couple of times using a different color of paint each time. The paint created pretty layers on top of each other as we added each cup of paint and spun it.

Step 7

When we had created several coffee filter works of art, we set them out to dry on a clothes drying rack.

Finishing The Turkey Craft: Awesome Thanksgiving Art

Step 8

When they had dried, I had my son pick out the painted coffee filter that he wanted to use to create a special Thanksgiving turkey.

Step 9

We then cut out a head, eyes, beak  and feet to add to the turkey out of construction paper.

You can also use googly eyes or wiggle eyes instead of making your own.

Step 10

My son glued each of the pieces onto the turkey’s feathers and we had a turkey with feathers to make an original piece of Thanksgiving art.

Using Spin Art Technique with Kids

That makes two wonderful reasons to paint using a salad spinner. The first was to contain paint in a closed container and the second is that you can create amazing works of art.

Now matter how many times we salad spinner paint the paintings all come out differently.

Our Experience With This Thanksgiving Turkey Craft for Kids

If you enjoy having your children play and explore painting, but don’t love a lot of paint everywhere than salad spinner painting may just be your kind of painting. It is a form of spin painting that uses this common kitchen gadget.

We just painted the feathers of this wonderful turkey craft with the spin paint technique and didn’t end up with paint all over the table because we used the salad spinner.

This is a great fine motor skills practice! This fun Thanksgiving craft will make the cutest Thanksgiving turkeys. It’s a great way to get ready for Thanksgiving in a festive way or keep kids busy on Thanksgiving day.

Coffee Filter Spin Art Turkey

Print

Materials

• Paint of various colors
• Coffee Filters
• Water in a small bowl
• Construction Paper
• Glue
• Googly Eyes (optional)

Tools

• Salad Spinner

Instructions

1. We added a couple globs of a single color to the water and swished it around.
2. When the water and the paint had blended, we dumped it on top of a coffee filter sitting in the salad spinner.
3. My son pushed on the spinner button and watched the paint fly. He loves to make the spinner go faster and faster.
4. We repeated the process above a couple of times using a different color of paint each time. The paint created pretty layers on top of each other as we added each cup of paint and spun it.
5. When we had created several coffee filter works of art, we set them out to dry on a clothes drying rack.
6. When they had dried, I had my son pick out the artist creation that he wanted to use to create a special Thanksgiving turkey.
7. We then cut out a head, eyes, beak  and feet to add to the turkey out of construction paper. You can also use googly eyes instead of making your own.
8. My son glued each of the pieces onto the turkey’s feathers and we had a turkey with feathers to make an original piece of Thanksgiving art.

Notes

Don't put too much dye into the water, or the colors may get very muddy.

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  Salad Spinner
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  Googly Eyes

Variation on Turkey Craft without a Salad Spinner

There are a ton of ways you can still use a coffee filter for this turkey craft without spinning the paint in a salad spinner. Here are some of our favorite variations:

• Use watercolor paints on your coffee filters for a softer, pastel turkey
• Have the kids decorate the coffee filter with markers and blocks of color then gently blot a wet paper towel on top to blend the colors
• Use stamps and paint to decorate your coffee filter
• Substitute a construction paper shape for the coffee filter

MORE TURKEY CRAFTS FOR KIDS From Kids Activities Blog

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• Create a turkey inspired snack or party favor with these turkey themed pudding cups.
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• Or what about turkey themed food? We love these turkey desserts.
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• Try this Thanksgiving turkey footprint craft!
• Let’s make an origami turkey!
• Make a vibrant colorful turkeys art project for kids…

Psst…Check out these amazing coffee filter crafts!

How did your turkey craft turn out? Did your kids have fun with the spin paint technique?