A Kindergarten Thanksgiving

Wow!  Thanksgiving krept up on me so fast!!  This week has been crazy busy, but it is one of my favorite weeks of the kindergarten year.  Preparing for the annual Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast is always an exciting time for our students.

We worked very hard all week preparing our costumes.  The children had a great time making their headbands, pouches and shirts.  I put a plain white t-shirt on their School Supply List back at the beginning of the school year so we would have them for this special day.  I took the shirts home and dyed and frayed the edges.  Then during the week my para helped the kids stamp their own shirts.  This was the first time I used actual t-shirts and I think they turned out so cute!  I usually use the brown paper bag, but this way really wasn't any more trouble then the bags.  I think we will stick with the t-shirts from now on!! 

Each class was responsible for bringing something to the feast to share with the entire Kindergarten.  The only requirement is that is has to be something (or something close) that was actually brought to the first Thanksgiving.  Our contribution this year was butter.  I love to make butter with my kinders because they love seeing the whipping cream turn into the butter right before their eyes.  It tastes yummy too!!

Here is a shot of what was brought to our feast this year:
Popcorn, dried berries, bread/butter, jerky and pumpkin cookies.

Before we head to our feast we have a Thanksgiving Parade through the entire school to show off our adorable Pilgrims and Indian costumes.  The big kids show their respect by waving and clapping as we go by.  It is so much fun.  We eventually make it into the cafeteria where our feast is usually held.  We have wonderful parents and para-pro's that prepare the plates so they are ready to hand out when we arrive. We share our food together and the children have a great time sitting with their friends talking about this fun experience!!

 

During the week we did some other really fun activities.   I purchased Deanna Jump's Thanksgiving Unit and we had a ball with it.  I will post some more photos later this week. 

One activity that I do have a picture of right now is a Turkey Word Family Activity.  The kids had a great time writing and reading their favorite word families!!  I had to differentiate this activity to meet the needs of my students but by doing this all of my children were successful at their particular task. I got this cute turkey idea/activity from a very kind teacher whose blog I came across recently.  

Thank you Mrs. Carroll at The First Grade Parade!  

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Special Guest Reader

On Thursday, our school participated in the Book It Celebrity Read In.   We had a very special guest come to our class and read to us.  We had a veterinarian visit our class and her name is Dr. King.  She talked to us a little about her job and then read us some books about veterinarians and the different things that she does.  The children were very excited about having Dr. King in our class.  I think the most excited of them all was Cedric.  He was the most surprised because Dr, King is his Aunt!! 

October Fun!!!

We have been very busy during the month of October.  The Fall is one of my favorite times of year in Kindergarten.  There are sooooo many fun activities to do that it is almost impossible to get to all of them!!  Here are just a few of the highlights from the month!

October Door

This is our door for the month.  I found those adorable Halloween characters at The Dollar Tree.  I think they look so cute hanging out with my polka dots!!  I will have to take the down to make room for our turkeys!!!

October Family Project

Our October Family Project was to design a Jack o Lantern.  They turned out really cute !!

Jack o Lantern

Following Directions

Green Gables Kindergarten

This was a great following directions activity for my kids.  The kids were really proud of their finished Jack o Lanterns!  They had fun brainstorming and deciding on how they were going to finish their "My pumpkin is _______." sentence.  They did a really good job.  I used them as decoration around our classroom door.  You can kind of see some of them in the family project picture above.

Carving a Jack o Lantern

This activity is always a highlight for the kids each year.  My children this year particularly  loved cleaning the "guts" out of the pumpkin the best!  This is the first time for a lot of them to ever see the inside of a pumpkin.  I made sure that they smelled the inside too!!  We got called to an assembly in the middle of the carving so we had to stop and I had to finish the carving part after school.  They were really excited to see the finished product all lit up the next morning.  I guess I was excited too because I forgot to take a picture of him.  :(

Haunted House Patterns

Green Gables Kindergaten

I found this activity a few weeks before Halloween and I knew when I saw it my kids were gonna love it, and I was right!!  They had a great time creating their own patterns using foam halloween pieces I found a Target.  I was surprised at some of the more difficult patterns that were made!  

Batty -at Words

I created this activity because so many of my kids were having a hard time blending and creating -at words.  I wanted provide them with another fun opportunity to use and manipulate the different letters used to make the -at words.  They had to read the words to me when they were finished.  

October flew by so fast!  I can't believe it is November already and only 2 weeks away from Thanksgiving! I have recently found some really great ideas and activities from some awesome teachers that I plan in implementing during these next 2 weeks!  We are going to have a lot of fun!!!

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