I love inspiring my students to write using seasonal themes and resources! In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, we read lots of books and discussed its origins and the traditions surrounding it. Several years ago, I scoured the internet to find a fun activity that I could display in the hallway outside the classroom, but I couldn’t find anything just right. So, I created this…
I began this mini-unit by teaching my students about the parts of the paragraph. I decided to adapt the OREO model I kept seeing on Pinterest to the needs of my own students and came up with this:
It’s not perfect, but it totally resonated with my students! Next, I made our learning goal and success criteria explicitly clear:
And now, the fun begins! I read the book “The Great Turkey Race” to my kiddos.
They LOVED it!! My students thought the silly turkeys in the story, who were vying to become THE Thanksgiving turkey, were hilarious!
When the story was finished, we discussed what it would be like to be a Thanksgiving turkey at this time of the year. What a fun chat that was! Their ideas were so cute!!
Were they ever ready to write after this!!
Finally, we prepared our own Thanksgiving turkeys… really!! I took a
photo of each student and had them developed before this lesson. We
cut out their faces, and THEY became the turkeys! They had so much fun
decorating these! Take a look at the final products! (I wish I could show their little faces!)
All the girls claimed it would be scary! The boys, however, had some very interesting approaches… Like this one, who said he would “tap dance out the door.”!
….or this one, who said he would “Throw a stink (stick) at his head to knock him out so I can run away.” Then concluded, “Being a Thanksgiving turkey would be great… until Thanksgiving.”!!
You can grab a copy of this resource for use in your own classroom NOW!
Be sure to pin this post!
