The majority of the week, we talked about what it means to be thankful and what we are thankful for. We discussed the tradition of sharing what we are thankful for with each other on Thanksgiving. We read the book Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes, which gives a lot of wonderful examples of things to be thankful for.
After we read the book, my students drew and wrote ideas in a web for things they are thankful for. Then on the back, they chose one thing to draw in detail.
We also talked a lot of the tradition of eating a big meal with your family and friends on Thanksgiving. We talked about what foods we like to eat on Thanksgiving after reading This is the Turkey by Abby Levine. The kids also made their own cut and paste book about Thanksgiving food. They got to draw their own favorite food on the last page.
(cake)
(broccoli and green beans)
On another day, the kids got to make their own "Thanksgiving plate" where they cut out or create foods to put on their plate. They turned out really cute!
Another of my favorite Thanksgiving stories is The Littlest Pilgrim by Brandi Dougherty. The kids listened to the CD of the story and then completed an "I Can Listen to Reading" sheet (from KinderCraze) where they illustrated a picture from the story.
We also made a class book where we talked about things that we are not too little to do.
I let the kids cut out and color their own pilgrim. I have no idea where I got this activity...it's a very old printable BUT I love it and do it every year! My kids did such a great job of making their pilgrim look like them! :)
In math we were learning positional words including left and right. One day in math, I traced the kids hands and they labeled their left (L) and right (R) hands. Then I let them illustrate their hands to look like turkeys. A few of the kids had their turkeys get married! :)
On Friday, we meet with our book buddies (a 2nd grade class) where we read and do activities together. Each of my students is paired with a second grader for the year. The kids worked together to color and fill in the blanks of a book about what the pilgrims were thankful for. At the end, the kids illustrated what they were thankful for.
We ended our unit with two fun crafts! First, the kids made thankful turkeys. They wrote something they were thankful for on each feather.
My favorite activity was a simple, but super cute craft: the old, reliable turkey hand print craft! I painted the kids palm brown and each finger a different color. The kids put their hands on paper where they had written "Happy Thanksgiving" to make the turkey. Later they added a beak and legs.
My team and I have started a tradition that when we teach Kindergarten, we have a Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast. Every class brings a different item for the meal and we all eat together in the cafeteria. Two of our classes come dressed as Native Americans and the other two come dressed as pilgrims. My class was the pilgrims this year. We made cute hats to wear! Even I wore one! :)
Hope you enjoyed our activities! Check out my Thanksgiving unit if you would like to try them out next year!
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