Like pipe cleaners and construction paper, hand turkeys have been a staple of elementary school art classrooms for decades.

You know the drill: Trace your hand on a piece of paper and decorate it to look like a turkey. Your thumb is the head. Your other fingers are the feathers.

This Thanksgiving, we want you to celebrate the bountiful harvest season by creating your own hand turkey and sending it to the Journal-World.

The rules are simple: Trace your hand on a sheet of white 8 1/2-by-11-inch paper and be as elaborate as you want to be when decorating it. Maybe go with a theme: Disco turkey, perhaps? You could even cut out your hand pattern and make a 3-D gobbler. We’ll run some of the most creative entries in the Thanksgiving Day paper.

Send your hand turkeys to Terry Rombeck, c/o the Lawrence Journal-World, 645 New Hampshire, Lawrence 66044. Or drop them off at the News Center, at the same address. Call 832-7145 if you have questions. Deadline is 5 p.m. Nov. 20.

Please include your name, age, city where you live and a phone number where we can reach you.

So go ahead. Make Miles Standish proud.