Activities for Teaching Thanksgiving

Hard to believe it is already November. I have been living in DC for over 3 months now, that’s nearly one third of the total time we will be there! I can’t wait to see the city during the holidays. For the first time ever I will get to see the Christmas Tree in front of the White House! SCREECH…..hold up! It’s November…so rewind a little and lets talk turkey! Here are some of the pictures I snapped last year in Megan’s room during November.

Thanksgiving Circle Maps

We made a Thanksgiving Circle Map to write all the words we associate with Thanksgiving. While I was writing on the large circle map, the kids were writing on their smaller version. During centers, the children made Pilgrim boys and girls to hold their maps.

All About Native Americans

After learning about Native Americans, the kids make little books to record what they learned. Some used pictures, some used labels, and some used sentences. Then, during centers that made a Native American to hold their books. The cute little Native Americans are made from a paper bag! Yep…just a regular ol’ lunch bag! Inside we glued their little non fiction books. 

Five Big Fat Turkeys

My kiddos love this 5 Little Turkeys song to the tune of “3 Little Angels”. This is a great way to develop fluency to 5 in a way that is fun, engaging and conceptual! We used two different recording sheets, one that was pictorial and one that was abstract. You pick the one best for your kiddos or differentiate your instruction and give each child the recording sheet that fits their need.

Thanksgiving Graph

Here is a fun graphing activity on ways to travel for Thanksgiving. Graphing is a great tool to teach comparisons of sets—more, less, equal, most, fewest, etc.

Ordinal Number Turkeys

We also had a center for this turkey ordinal number activity.

Turkey Glyph

In case you aren’t familiar with glyphs, they are a way to compare data—not just an art activity. Here’s one hint to make sure they are analyzing the data and not just answering the questions about themselves---have them swap turkeys with a partner. Now they must look at their partner’s turkey and answer the data questions! This really makes them pay attention to the glyph and the data!

 

Compound Word Mayflowers

With this little Mayflower Book we were making compound words by matching pictures that could be put together to make a new word. Then they were stretching out the words.

_at Family Words

For this activity, the children spin the spinner in the pilgrims hat to make new at family words. Then, they recorded the words on their recording sheet.

Gobble, Gobble Swat Game

I snagged this picture from Kathleen’s blog at Growing Kinders.  To play the game, you spread out the turkeys. Give one child the pilgrim flyswatter and  another child the Native American flyswatter. When you call out a word, they go on a turkey hunt to find the turkey containing the “word”. When, they find it, they catch the turkey by swatting it with the flyswatter. Okay guys, they just love this game! Hope you have fun in Thanksgiving…it’s not too long until another break..so hold on we can make it!

Here are the resources used to write this blog post.
Gobble Gobble Turkey Unit
Happy Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Activities
Turkey Glyph