We Are Thankful!

The theme for the last week of November was "We Are Thankful". Since it is a short week, we focused on Thanksgiving and Turkey themed activities. We finished out the month with our ABAB patterned turkeys!

This week we read: A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting
                                        Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland
                                        Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson

We have gotten to the end of another month, which means comparing weathers!

                                
Our question of the week was "What are you thankful for?"

For our theme "We Are Thankful", we did a lot of fun activities. We made Turkey headbands to wear at our school's Thanksgiving feast. Speaking of feast... yum!!

We sang "Turkey Dinner" to the tune of Frere Jaques.

Turkey Dinner, Turkey Dinner

Gather Round, Gather Round

Who will get the drumstick?

Yummy Yummy drumstick

All sit down, all sit down.

Cornbread, muffins,

Chestnuts, stuffing,

Pudding pie ten feet high.

We were all much thinner, before we sat for dinner!

Me, oh, my me, oh, my.

The kids colored and put together a turkey "puzzle". I couldn't decide if I wanted letters to help them, or numbers, so I did both!

I gave the children a turkey maze and a pumpkin maze, that they had a lot of fun with.

We looked at pictures to find out which ones were different.

The kids wrote in their journal about what they are thankful for.

We sang "Let's Be Thankful" to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Counting from 1-30 is much more fun while making a Turkey dot-to-dot!

We talked about the Cornucopia, and the the class colored and cut vegetables and fruits to make a Cornucopia collage.

We also had our first "real" snow of the season!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Native Americans! (3-7)

Our theme for the third week of November, our theme was "Turkeys, Pilgrims and Native Americans".

We read this week: Red Fox and His Canoe by Nathaniel Benchley
                               The Thirsty Moose by David Orme
                               1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessey
                               Thanksgiving Cats by Jean Marzollo
                               The Very First Thanksgiving by Rhonda Gowler Greene

Our question of the week was "What one thing would you bring on the Mayflower with you?"

For our theme of the week, we discussed Pilgrim and Native American life. We focused on how they lived and what their homes and villages were like.  The kids had fun deciding
which life they would rather live.

We made strawberry juice using strawberries, water and a little bit of honey. The kids got to squish up the strawberries and watch as the juice developed. Everyone tried it, which I was super proud of, and about half of them wanted more!

The kids also worked on coloring their Thanksgiving placemats. Our director got them for all the kids from Oriental Trading. The kids loved them because they were like giant coloring pages.

We sang "Indians and Pilgrims" to the tune of "Row your boat" which I found here.

Beat, beat, beat the drum.

Beat it loud and clear.

Tell the Indians everywhere,

That hunting time is near.

Cut, cut, cut the logs,

Make them long and short,

To help the Pilgrims build a house

A warm and friendly fort.

One of our amazing teachers in the school brought in a special guest for the kids to see. They voted and decided that his name would be Giblet.

We did not talk about a letter, number or shape this week. In preparing for parent teacher conferences, we worked on portfolio assessments. We went over numbers 1-30, all the shapes, patterns and the alphabet, lowercase and capitals.

Each day we did an activity that focused on a letter, 3-7.  I got these activities from this book. The kids had to color three of each item in a group.

They did a number 4 color by number.

Colored 5 of each flavor of ice cream.

Color by number for 6.

They had to draw 7 apples on a tree. (I didn't get a picture. =[)

Our class had two birthdays this week! We love to celebrate in my class.

Here's an update from our "planted" pumpkins! We planted them the week of Halloween, and we got a sprout!!

Up next week: Number review week and "We Are Thankful".