Fall, 50's, Turkeys and Thanksgiving!

Fall, the 50th day of school, and Thanksgiving came and went!

This fall I combined an activity I did when I taught Pre-K.
Students took a tree silhouette and finger paint leaves on the trees.
This year students used 5 different colors and painted 10 of each color giving us a total of 50 leaves.
Students also wrote color words at the bottom incorporating writing.

A freebie of this soon to come.
The trees looked awesome displayed in the foyer.
We made sure to use fall colors to make the activity season appropriate.

I love using Cara Carroll's 50th day of school unit

I purchased this unit for my first grade students but was able to make some accommodations for my kindergarten kiddos!! This year students loved an introduction to measurement with the records and tootsie rolls. We also practiced writing numbers to fifty and multiple ways.

We dressed in full costume, slurped root beer floats, and practiced numbers to 50.
I also found a great powerpoint that showed pictures and allowed students to make references to living in the 50's.

What a great day!

I don't know about you but seriously November came and went!
I love to start a new month with a little fact writing

Last year I used Cara Carroll's freebie Turkey Talk

I loved how this turned out but I changed how students would record information a smidge

I loved how my kids took the information from the anchor chart and incorporated it into their project.
The way we organized our anchor chart made writing our facts a breeze.

As a class we also watched the Pebblego video on Turkeys.
I love this resource for introducing new animals. 

Students filled in this anchor chart displaying information about Turkeys

Students then took the information and wrote in on their own!!

The Great Turkey Race by Steve Metzger is a classroom favorite!

We used this freebie to make predictions as to where the turkey's went.
Student's really enjoyed the creativity in this project.

As a part of our Everyday math unit we introduced Roll and Record.
I used  this worksheets to practice recognizing numbers on dice and recording the number rolled.
It was important to emphasize that we are not looking to fill all of the blocks or even all of the blocks in one row but we are to read the number and color one block at a time.

As a take home project all of Kindergarten has students disguise a turkey of their own.
We hung ours in the hallway!

First we read Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

We discussed how turkeys must feel when we all eat them for Thanksgiving.
Students then brainstormed ideas of other things we could eat for thanksgiving instead. 

Below our turkeys, displayed in the hallway we hung our persuasive writing.

Thanksgiving writing included describing character traits in the story 

The Littlest Pilgrim by Brandi Doughtery

Students helped to complete an anchor chart about mini that described all of her feelings throughout the story.

Students then completed this worksheet and created a little craft to go with their writing.

They came out amazing!!!!

I had too many fun Thanksgiving stories to read to my kiddos ....

We'll end with a Thanksgiving Feast

and....

Thanksgiving Rules by Laurie Friedman

What a great story about a little boy who explains all about the rules of Thanksgiving.
Students made their own rules for thanksgiving dinner and they were adorable.

We had a blast talking about all things fall, 50's and turkey and Thanksgiving:)