Before our Thanksgiving break my
little ones will be having their very own Thanksgiving feast right here in the
classroom! We will be serving turkey, mashed potatoes, carrots, corn bread, and
I am sure a few will be requesting cereal as a favorite :) I can't wait to
celebrate with my little ones soon, so we have been very busy preparing by making
turkey headband hats and hand print turkey placemats!
I've seen so many variations of
the turkey headband in the past two years here at my preschool, and of course
online, that I just incorporated my favorite aspects of the turkey headbands
into one pretty cute little turkey, if you ask me ;) Since my children are so
little I was able to use a 12x18 piece of brown construction paper cut
lengthways.
We
also have been hard at work making placemats for the party. I have loved this turkey
craft since I first saw it right after Thanksgiving last year on Pinterest,
and couldn't wait to do something with it. I started out by painting each
children's right hand red, yellow, and green, then their left hand brown and orange.
The hands formed a half of circle around the paper. As you can see, it can be
tricky to get the hands perfectly centered, but that is what makes each one
unique. Once the paint dried I cut around the outside of the paper to give it a
border using decorative scissors.
While the hand prints were drying
I had the children make little turkeys that we would then glue in the middle of
the handprints.
Here is an example of one of the finished placemats.
I LOVE how they turned out. Some handprints were done on white construction
paper (one of my classes) and some were done on beige paper (my other class). I
personally think the beige paper gives it more of a fall-themed feel, which I
like very much. I personalized each by adding their names, year and HAPPY
THANKSGIVING on the bottom.
This is the one I did last year
that I put together last minute. I wasn't happy with the finished result, but I
was short for time and wanted them to go home with something the day of their
party.
This is a placemat my son made
last year and I am sure my daughter will be making this year (same teacher for
both of my kids), so I can wait to set the table for them this year with their
adorable placemats! I LOVE how his teacher personalized it by adding his name in
the front underneath the poem and pictures of all the things he was thankful for
on the back.
Reinforce letter matching with this fun Thanksgiving activity. Attach a simple turkey body cutout to a wall. Then label pairs of construction paper feathers with matching letters and place the feathers on the floor. Invite a volunteer to choose a feather and then look for its match. When he finds the matching feather, prompt students to jump up and strut around the room while gobbling like turkeys. Then help the child attach both feathers to the turkey. Repeat the process for each remaining pair of feathers. For a different skill option, program pairs of feathers with matching uppercase and lowercase letters. Tell us what you think about this idea! 
