Preschool Syllabus: Thanksgiving & Turkeys

This week and next it's all about Thanksgiving and Turkeys at our house.

our fact board - i record the new facts big buddy learns and
then he "reads" them to daddy

We won't be going too in-depth in any particularly area. We've got a rather large assortment of books on the history of Thanksgiving, it's traditions, and the silliness of turkeys. One literacy activity we will definitely be trying is making our own version of these Thanksgiving story bracelets.

WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS

coloring sheets (via abcteach.com), turkey stickers,
paint strip cutting.
skills practiced: fine motor, creativity, social studies

LEARNING "TRAYS" - I rotate these, setting out about four a day from which the boy's can choose.

pumpkin alphabet game (pumpkins: painted "plaster of
paris" from ice cube mold)
skills practiced: letter recognition

color matching turkey feathers game (turkey is a painted paper
plate with construction paper details, the feathers are clothes
pins covered with paint samples)
skills practiced: comparing, matching

melissa and doug thanksgiving puzzle
*puzzles like these are pretty easy for big buddy but i've found
thepictures themselves can lead to great discussions*
skills practiced: fine motor, spatial reasoning, social study knowledge

pumpkin pie playdough (cream-of-tarter playdough with food
coloring and pumpkin pie spice)
skills practiced: fine motor, creativity, spatial reasoning, sensory

corn cob and turkey prints
skills practiced: fine motor, creativity

transferring water with turkey baster
* I was surprised by the amount of concentration and coordination it
took big buddy to use the baster, it really is a great activity for
developing hand control*
skills practiced: fine motor, understanding of volume,

tweezing correct amount of candy corn on to playing cards
skills practiced: fine motor, rational counting, numeral recognition

"turkey" and feathers counting game (the "turkeys" are
painted styrofoam craft balls)
skills practiced: numeral recognition, fine motor, rational counting

scooping "cranberries" in to marked cups ("cranberries" are
dollar store vase filler)
skills practiced: fine motor, seriation, understanding of volume,

This should keep us pretty busy but there are also a few crafts I hope we find time for - there are so many fun ways to make a turkey. :)

A Little Red Cardboard Barn

We've finished our farm unit and are moving on to a new theme tomorrow - but before we do I wanted share the barn we made. The wooden farm animals came with a beautiful handmade ark that we gave Big Buddy for Christmas a couple years ago. I would someday love to have a wood barn but it's currently not in the budget. So in the mean time we decided to improvise and make our own. I stumbled upon this perfectly sized milk box (4 gallons per box) while subbing and thought it would be sturdy enough to handle play. Hubandie and the boys used an x-acto knife and wood glue to build a barn shape. to get the doors to fold out hubandie used an x-acto knife and scored the inside of the cardboard We then painted with a basic primer and outlined a window and a door with painters tape. cardboard is very porous so priming is a must if you want decent coverage Big Buddy however insisted that we add more windows so it looked like the barn in our book The Big

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Preschool Syllabus: Dr. Seuss

Normally I'd do a Dr. Seuss unit in March around his birthday. We had to do one now though because on Saturday Big Buddy and I going on a date to a Dr. Seuss exhibit . The exhibit is only at the museum until January and I'm afraid if we don't go now we might not get the chance. We are of course reading lots of Dr. Seuss's books. A great advatage to studying Dr. Seuss in November rather than March is that all his books were available at the library. I also found a great children's biography which is perfect for preschoolers. Pebble First Biographies: Dr. Seuss We've read it a couple times and Big Buddy loves reciting all the facts he's learned WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS big buddy's name in sand paper letters, coloring pages & mazes from seussville.com skills practiced: fine motor, letter recognition, creativity, reading comprehension LEARNING "TRAYS" - I rotate these, setting out about four a day from which the boy&#

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Jack-O-Lanterns on the Fridge

Last fall I saw the idea for refrigerator pumpkins with face pieces in FamilyFun Magazine and have been anxious to recreate them ever since. It was pretty quick and easy and since the only thing we didn't have on hand was magnetic sheets ($1.50 with coupon at Joann's) it was also very cheap. my supplies: magnetic sheets, orange & black construction paper, white pen, tacky glue *i know they have self adhesive sheets but my Joann's didn't carry them glued (very messily) and ready to cut Both the boys were quite enthused when they discovered them after rest time :) Hopefully it will keep them entertained until we carve real pumpkins.

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Comments

UnknownNovember 15, 2011 at 3:23 PM
Can I just say, YOU ARE AMAZING! These ideas are fantastic!
AnonymousNovember 17, 2011 at 8:31 AM
I so love all that you did! What great ideas! I hope you will link this post to my Thanksgiving Traditions link up!
UnknownNovember 17, 2011 at 6:09 PM
I LOVE that paper plate turkey idea!
Rose @ Walnut AcreNovember 18, 2011 at 6:27 AM
I love these ideas - especially the alphabet game.
Lindsi BNovember 18, 2011 at 10:54 AM
Wow what a fantastic list of fun ideas and crafts to do to celebrate Thanksgiving! Would you please share these with my readers for Fun Stuff Fridays? I'd love to showcase you great ideas!

http://www.toysinthedryer.com/2011/11/introducing-fun-stuff-fridays.html
UnknownNovember 18, 2011 at 12:02 PM
I love all of your activities! They're so interactive and good for working little minds.
Lessons from the BoysNovember 20, 2011 at 11:46 AM
I love your trays. The turkey with the clothes pins is awesome!
AnonymousOctober 4, 2012 at 5:34 AM
do you have a printable for the candycorn tweezing numbers. thanks
ymann68@hotmail.com
LeeOctober 7, 2012 at 11:12 AM
I would love the printable for the candy corn cards too or did you just buy them? Where do you get the trays you use?
RaptorMamaNovember 5, 2012 at 8:04 AM
What fantastic ideas! I especially love the paper plate turkey. We'll be doing some of these this month for sure. :)

www.raptormama.com

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