It's Turkey Time! {Turkey Freebies & A Giveaway!}

Hi there, friends! Gina here from Miss Peluso's Kindergarten!

I hope you are enjoying your ride with The Primary Pack so far! I'm here today to blog about some ways that we have Thanksgiving fun in my classroom!

One of the first questions that I had when I started teaching was, "How do I incorporate anything themed or holiday related into a curriculum that is already jam packed!?" As a first year teacher last year, I had a really hard time straying from our district's curriculum to incorporate some of my favorite themed resources. One thing that I wish I had learned in grad school is that there is a way to find a happy medium between teaching thematically and not teaching thematically. It doesn't have to be all or nothing! It took all of last year to figure it out, but I have allowed myself to incorporate fun themes into the curriculum that I have to follow. Today I'll be sharing with you some ways that I incorporate Thanksgiving resources into my every day lessons! Let's kick this party off with one of my favorite things to teach… READING!

These are some of my absolute favorite Thanksgiving books. No, these books are not part of my reading curriculum. So, how do I fit them into the lessons that I have to teach? Our current reading unit is all about story elements. I used the books written into our curriculum to teach my students everything that they needed to know. Then, the fun started! Teaching story elements did not stop when I finished teaching with the books from the curriculum. We had tons of meaningful practice using these Thanksgiving books. We sequenced, made predictions, made text-to-self connections, identified story elements, and even completed a take-home project related to the book we were reading! (This one is a connection to Turkey Trouble- there are tons of templates for free if you search on TPT!)

Okay, so you can squeeze some holiday books in during your reading block... no biggie! But, how do you justify using thematic resources in your writing lessons? No matter what grade level you teach, we are all teaching our students the same basic elements for writing. Why not reinforce these skills with a Thankful Turkey? Differentiate for your students based on their skills. My students have been learning how to tell a story through pictures and how to write the sounds that they hear. So, that's exactly what they will do for their Thankful Turkey. More advanced students would write words or sentences on the turkey feathers. It's easy to incorporate your curriculum and your state standards!

Reading and writing seem doable, right? But HOW does Thanksgiving tie in with math? We are just finishing up learning about 2D shapes, so why not incorporate turkeys into a culminating activity? That's where the shape turkeys come in! My students had a blast designing their own shape turkeys. Number writing and 2D shape identification are reinforced on the shape turkey recording sheet, so it's a perfect curricular connection!

Thinking of using some of these ideas in your classroom? Snag some freebies below and don't forget to enter the rafflecopter to win my A Turkey For Thanksgiving book companion! You'll be ready to start tying your thematic activities in with your reading curriculum in no time!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you've found some tips that you can use in your classroom! Be sure to stop by my blog, Miss Peluso's Kindergarten, for more tips and freebies! Happy {Turkey} Tuesday, everyone!