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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Thanksgiving Activities for First Grade

I finally had the opportunity to do some themed planning, and after frequenting The First Grade Parade {my new FAVORITE blog!} I was inspired to incorporate lots of her Thanksgiving literacy activities into my own curriculum.  I owe her heaps of credit and am thankful that she posts so many easily doable activities on her site.  If you teach primary, you must check her out.  Enough italicizing, on with the projects!

It just so happened that we were studying long a words this week, and this darling printable was available at TFGP.  The kids could choose real words or "silly" {nonsense} words to write on the feathers, which is why this student wrote thave.  They're totally adorable. 
We read The Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern, and then used a graphic organizer of the Mayflower to sort statements about what life was like aboard it.

 Afterwards, they created these adorable "suitcases" that they would pack if they were able to travel on the Mayflower in modern times. 
 We read so many Thanksgiving-themed books this week, that I forget the one we read before we created this Venn diagram about pilgrims and Indians.  I think it was about Squanto, though. 

 We created another graphic organizer that discussed things the pilgrims did in the 1600s compared to what we do in the 2000s.  Then, as a follow-up, the kids created a pilgrim child and were given the sentence starter "I can_____, but the pilgrims could not."

For morning work one day, I gave each child a copy of a Thanksgiving poem that they were to write for the Thanksgiving placemats we created.  The turkey feather spread were marker-tye-died coffee filters and turned out adorable.   

 We also made scrapook paper turkeys with button eyes.  Love them!  First grade artwork is the best!



This idea was my own and incorporates graphing, making predictions, along with connections.  After reading so much about the pilgrims plight on the Mayflower, I decided to give my kids a taste {literally} of what life may have been like.  They had to predict whether or not they thought they would like Mayflower fare - "salted beef" and "dry biscuits."  The "salted beef" was regular beef jerky and the "dry biscuits" were drop biscuits made from Jiffy mix.  The kids loved the taste test. 



Our focus in reading was predictions, so we created a prediction chart for T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  The kids loved this story!  We followed this activity with the scrapbook turkeys pictured above. 


 And, if you want to read the poem above clearer, here is the sample I showed the kids. 
Again, please remember that I borrowed many of these ideas for TFGP! 

11 comments:

Jamie said...

What CUTE activities! Those scrapbook turkeys are just precious :) Your kiddos are lucky to have such a fun teacher like you!

Sarah Cooley said...

I love all of these ideas! Now I wish we had a longer week so I could do them all. {Well, sort of! Ha!} Thanks for sharing your cute charts--I really love the prediction one! I'll have to try that with one of my gingerbread books when we get back to school! I love First Grade Parade, and I love your blog, too! Thanks again for the inspiration.

Sarah Cooley

Miss Trayers said...

Great ideas! Incorporating a lot of higher-level thinking skills as well-you can't beat that! Thank you for sharing-I found your blog just in time to use some of your ideas in class for the 2 days we're there this week!

Erin said...

I love how the first turkey is straight up gangsta, the second looks like a whacked out rabbit and the third kind of reminds me of my grandpa. How cute are they?!?!?!

According to Ashley said...

I didn't know about First Grade Parade so I'm excited to try it out! Loving all the turkey projects! In kindergarten it takes us 2 days to do one project so I'm seriously impressed with everything you were able to do! We're going to try to squeeze in a few more Thanksgiving activities today and tomorrow! :)

Jenni said...

Love these ideas! We do the first turkey but with word wall words! Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

Such a wonderful week of learning, but yet having fun too!! I love when the themes can be incorporated into lessons... thanks for sharing!!

Jill said...

Thanks for posting that link- what great ideas!! Looks like you have some great ideas of your own as well! :)

Mrs. Bill said...

Such cute ideas!

Michelle said...

The First Grade Parade is also my new favorite blog. I discovered it about 3 weeks ago and I'm obsessed! Love Mrs. Carroll, although she is making lots of work for me. Love your posts as well. I'm a teacher in Cincy.

Rachelle said...

I love your blog! I am always inspired by other teacher blogs! Love your blog! Stop by mine sometime!
www.whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com

-Rachelle