1-2-3 Come Do Some Thanksgiving Turkey Activities With Me

Come November, it can become a bit boring for kiddo's to review letters, numbers, and various other basic standards.  Yet it's imparative to keep kids practicing these skills, so they retain them, as well as for slower learners to finally be able to "get it" and catch up. 

With that in mind, I designed some "Stuff Me!" turkey worksheets that make reinforcing upper & lowercase letters, counting, adjective use, and sight word recognition more fun. 

There are 6 "Stuff Me" skill sheets, that ask students to stuff their turkey with something.  I've also included a "you-fill-in-the- blank" one, to program with whatever. 

Some other ideas you could do would be: verbs, nouns, sight words, student names, names that begin with T, colors, rhyming words, words that contain the U vowel, spelling words, ways to show a given number etc.

To add to the fun, set a timer for 1 to 2 minutes.  Challenge students to write in as many as they can, before the timer rings.  For addition practice, have students count up their total and write it down on their recording sheet. 

When you have completed as many Stuff Me worksheets as you want, have students add things up to arrive at a grand total. 

Be sure and do these activities along with your students.  You might also want to revisit a worksheet to see if any of your kiddos can beat your totals.  Use the word worksheets, for something different, for your Daily 5 activities.  Click on the link to view/download the "Stuff Me" activity packet. 

Another "turkey-rific" writing activity, I designed several years ago, and just revamped today. My Thanksgiving Dinner, continues to be a favorite among visitors so I wanted to mention it today.

There are several options for the cover of the booklet.  In the first photo I used a large paper plate, glued just the cover to the center then stapled the other pages together and glued them on a second paper plate.

Punch a hole in the side and connect the front and back cover plates with a piece of yarn.  The Dollar Store sells plastic "silverware" that is silver and looks so realistic!  I used glue dots to add that finishing touch. 

If you want things to be a bit more colorful, use decorative fall paper plates.  The Dollar Store also sells these. In the bottom photo I used a small 8 inch plate, put the entire booklet on that and then glued it to a construction paper "placemat" gluing the "silverware" on either side.  

Completed projects make a cool bulletin board.  Use a "real" plastic or fabric tablecloth for your background and scatter on the plates. 

Students read the simple sentence, trace and then write the food word and add end punctuation. 

You may want students to include an adjective when they are writing their sentences.  i.e. I am going to eat warm homemade bread.

Students have the option to put in the word NOT if they won't be eating that food, or create their own picture page of what they will be eating. I've included a blank page template for this.

I've also included a different cover that says: My Favorite Dinner and a blank page template, for students you may have in class that don't celebrate this holiday.  They can make a booklet with their favorite foods, or a special meal that their family makes for one of their celebrations.

When everyone is done, read the booklet aloud, to review concepts of print, stopping to share pages that are different.  The packet also includes 10 traceable word cards.  These are the words that were used in the booklet. 

You can use them for a Daily 5 word work activity to help reinforce word recognition.  Click on the link to view/download the My Thanksgiving Dinner "craftivity".

After you have read a few books about the first Thanksgiving, a nice follow up to the above activity, would be to have students complete a Venn diagram comparing their Thanksgiving celebration with the Pilgrim's. 

There's also a Venn diagram comparing Thanksgiving then and now.  Click on the link to view/download the Thanksgiving Venn Diagram.

My personal favorite book about Thanksgiving is an awesome rhyming story, by Diane Z. Shore. It's entitled: This Is The Feast.  

For more books, click on the link to view/print a list of 70 of my favorite Turkey & Thanksgiving Books.

Thanks for visiting today.  I hope you can strut on over tomorrow for another FREEBIE hot off my computer. 

Feel free to PIN away.   If you'd like to see all of the wonderful-educational FREEBIES, that I can fritter an entire morning away looking for and pinning, click on the heart button to the right of the article.  I've done lots of fun work, so that you don't have to!

"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." -Tyrion Lannister

1-2-3 Come Do Some Fall Writing With Me!

While I was working on the scarecrow packets, it crossed my mind that scarecrows are really not all that scarey?  I thought of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz who wanted a brain, and I wondered if a scarecrow had one, what would he say?  My brain needs a shut off button, so one idea led to another, 'til I decided to turn all of these thoughts into interesting writing prompts with a scarecrow character.

Getting students excited about writing, and WANTING to write, can be difficult.  A teacher announcing that "It's time to write." is often followed by a lot of groaning, as if you had asked students to whine in unison. 

To get my students enthusiastic about writing I'd dream up creative and interesting writing prompts to jump start their brains.

Instead of  informing students that it's time to write, ask them:  "If you were a scarecrow what would you want to wear?"  or "Do you think scarecrows are scarey? If you were the farmer, how could you make a scarecrow scarier?"  

Watch all the hands shoot up.  With lots of enthusiasm say: "Great! Now choose one of these scarecrow writing prompts and tell me your thoughts in detail." Reveal the prompts listed on the board and have students choose which one they are most "excited" about.  My kiddo's couldn't wait to get started. Woo Hoo!

Click on the link to view/download the 6 Scarecrow Writing Prompts

Thanks for visiting today.  I design and blog daily, so I hope you can stop by tomorrow to check out the newest FREEBIES hot off my computer.  Feel free to PIN away.  I think sharing is so important. To ensure that other "pinners" return to THIS blog article, click on the green title at the top; it will turn black, now click on the "Pin it" button on the menu bar.   If you'd like to see all the creative-educational items that I pin, click on the heart to the right of the blog. I have an entire board of just scarecrow and writing activities.

"It's always better to try and fail, than fail to try." -Unknown