Volcano trap, quicksand yard: Kids’ creative plans for getting turkey to the Thanksgiving table

Ah, turkey. The star of the show this week.

When you sit down for the big dinner Thursday, you might want to listen to the diners at the kids’ table. They have interesting takes on just how to get and prepare Mr. Tom Turkey. And it requires more work and some unusual supplies.

First, get the turkey

It’s more complicated than going to the Jewel, according to the students in Kelly Beuten’s class at Prairie View Grade School in Elgin. The school is part of Central Unit District 301.

After hearing her read the book “How to Catch a Turkey,” they were tasked with designing ways to nab a gobbler and building a prototype of their traps with paper, pipe cleaners and Popsicle sticks.

They worked in pairs for several days on sketches, a rough draft of the instructions and building the traps.

Many of the traps relied on putting food inside to attract the turkey. Once inside the device, various ways would be used to keep it. Some said a person would pull a string to close the trap, or its feet would become stuck on a layer of glue.

Not Aryan Nagda. “A net would drop on him and a bucket, a pile of snakes” would incapacitate the turkey, he said.

Ella Polites said her trap door would “power the lasers up and then they taze him.”

Another trap involved luring the turkey into a yard filled with quicksand.

Then there was Leo Anaya, who figured out a way to trap and cook the turkey in one fell swoop.

“That’s a volcano,” he proudly pointed out. The trap would launch the turkey into the air, and the bird would drop into the volcano. It “will come out safely,” and Leo would eat it. Monkeys also were involved somehow.

“I was really impressed,” Beuten said. “They were really creative.”

1,000 degrees?

At Hanover Highlands Elementary School in Hanover Park, the students in Wallesca Reyes’ class outlined their plans for cooking the bird and what to eat with it.

The most popular answers to the second question? Very practical: “Knife and fork.” Or very loving: “Mom and Dad,” “Mom and sister” and the like.

But Toby Martinez had tasty ideas: cranberry sauce and apple pie. The sauce might help with a bird that has been cooked at 1,001 degrees for 10 hours, as chef Toby would do.

And according to Lucas Rodriguez, “You need to add cinnamon sauce,” and cook the bird at 67 degrees for 60 minutes with a rock.

Reyes has been a teacher in Schaumburg Elementary District 54 for 31 years, including 12 at Hanover Highlands. So she’s seen a gamut of answers to the questions.

“I’m surprised no one said ‘air fryer’” as a way to cook the bird, Reyes said.

Even so, Toby managed to surprise her this year with how he would obtain the turkey. Kids usually write that they will build a trap, or maybe hit the turkey over the head with a hammer.

“To be honest, I’ve never heard a student say ‘I’m going to go to a farm and kill it,’” Reyes said, chuckling.

For more than half of Reyes’ students, the Thanksgiving Day holiday is a foreign concept. They are children of immigrants, or immigrants themselves, including kids from Colombia and Ukraine.

She understands that. Reyes was born in the territory of Puerto Rico. When she was little, her family didn’t celebrate the holiday until after moving to the United States.

“I don’t know how many (of them) have had a turkey,” she said. “So it has been kind of a learning thing for them.”