Talkin' Turkey

I'm going to pretend that it's almost time for Thanksgiving break, and not he middle of December. I took lots of pictures of the fun craftivities that we did in November, but never got around to posting them. So, here they are. Happy Turkey Day! (Just a little late...)


This is a recycled bulletin board from last year. The hedgehog was so cute I just had to bring him out again, This year our turkeys in disguise flew in with our painted fall leaves once the pumpkins rolled away. The turkeys are a family project ~ I love to see their creativity!

Directed draw turkeys.  I love how the turkeys are drawn according to explicit directions, but turn out so different! Kid artwork is the best!

Math craftivity ~ first we "baked" some paper plate pumpkin pies using torn paper & cotton balls. I had to help them cut a slice (it was a bit too thick for our kindergarten scissors to cut). Once the kids had their slice of pie they stuck it onto our graph. I was surprised that so many kids lie pumpkin pie.

This is an oldy-moldy craft from an old book I've had forever. The kids don't mind that the book was published back in the 1980s ~ they are just happy to be able to use glitter!

Super simple scarecrow craft looks special because it has real ribbon & glitter leaf stickers.

Another paper plate craft. This time the kids painted the plates to make tails. (We did this craft on Veterans' Day, which served as an inspiration to the little guy who painted the flagish turkey tail.)

I hope you enjoyed our Thanksgiving crafts even if it is the middle of December.  

Has Anyone Seen My Turkey?

I stumbled upon this gem of a freebie on Teachers pay Teachers last week and just HAD to use it!


                                           

I copied the turkey onto card stock and sent it home with my Kinders for a fun family project.  They are so cute and creatively decorated.  The freebie included a writing page, so I had my kiddos write a descriptive paper about their turkeys.  I am pretty happy with how this project turned out ~ it's a keeper! I will definitely do it again next year.

                                               
                                             

Holy Cow! I'm Posting My Five on Friday!

Wow!  I feel on top of things ~ as long as I try not to think about my Bin of Shame on the floor behind my desk...  Every year I vow to not allow stuff to pile up, and I've been pretty good so far this year.  I stayed after for a little while to work on my Literacy & Math stations for next week, and it happened ~ the dreaded Bin of Shame made its appearance!  You know the one ~ an innocent looking little bin that holds a couple of things you need to sort through that somehow morphs into a huge pile of "I was wondering where that was!" by the end of the year.  I am determined not to allow this little white bin turn into an unwieldy pile!  If it's rainy this weekend, I may spend a couple of hours in my classroom to rid myself of the Bin of Shame as well as the Piles of Shame that are lurking in the corners waiting to pounce while I'm benchmark testing my Kinders.

We had a CrAzY week ~ it snowed on Tuesday.  Seriously... it's still November!  Needless to say my little Midwestern Kinders reacted to the white stuff as if they had just been dropped here from the Equator and were seeing snow for the very first time.  Of course, not everyone had snow pants & boots yet, so that lead to a chorus of "Why can't I play in the snow?"  Happily it is pretty much gone, so recess has gone back to normal.  Let's see, we had fire & lockdown drills, three birthdays, a full moon is on its way, and today was  reward  that they had been looking forward to all week.  Oh, and I got observed.

Anyway, despite all craziness, my little cuties made me proud & made me smile.  Here are five things from this week.  Happy Friday!

1. The Pilgrims crowd into the Mayflower!  The Kinders made these adorable pilgrims for our hallway bulletin board using a cute craftivity from Kindergarten Smiles.

 OK, so I work with some amazing people ~ some amazing people with a sense of humor.  When my class was at recess, and I was working on things in my room, they added a little more details to my bulletin board!

 The plane! The plane!  Love Boat!

2. Reward Day. My Kinders filled their class ten frames last week.  Yay!  For their reward we had Stuffed Animal Day today!  They brought their favorite - small - plush friend to school today.  Here they are reading -at family flip books to their friends.

3.  We broke out the glitter today!  I like to use the lids of copier paper cartons as "glitter stations."  A piece of construction paper makes pouring the glitter back into the little apple sauce containers.  Some of my glitter stations are over five years old!

4.  Yesterday my Kinder Diva partners and I  went to Elkhart to the Free Teacher store to do a little "shopping."  Well, it's not really shopping if it's all free is it?  Anyway, here is a picture of us with our overflowing shopping carrs.

5.  My newest product!  Check it out HERE!

I have a companion set for literacy.  You have until tomorrow (11/16/13) to enter to win this set.  Click HERE to enter.

Ta Da!  My Five for Friday!

Gobble Gobble!

 We made these cute turkeys yesterday.

It was quite an undertaking, but my Kinders cut out all of these circles and glued them on in the correct order!  My high school helper spent several days tracing the five circles needed for each of my eighteen kiddos.  (You may be wondering how do you have middle & high school student volunteers?  Our school is a little, country school with K - 12 in the same building.  On a side note, we may be small in size, but our student achievement is great!)  I made the cute letters with my Cricut "Speaking of Fall" cartridge.  

Our cute Thanksgiving bulletin board.

Several years ago a student gave me this wooden basket wall hanging.  It came with some schoolish clip-ons.  I later found out that it was made by a local crafter who sells the baskets and additional clip-ons at the various festivals in our area.  I was happy to find this cute turkey when I visited the "Scarecrow Festival" last year.  I have found that I am able to personalize this basket by simply sticking seasonal items to wooden clothespins with poster sticky *stuff*.

Turkey Day is Coming!

 Now that it is November, I thought that we should get going on our Thanksgiving themed projects.  This is an extra short month this year - it will be time to deck the halls before you know it!  Here are a few things we did today.

Tom the Turkey Word Family Bird.  I made this turkey to help my Kinders to practice making short i word families.  The turkey isn't fully attached to the black paper so the feathers can easily slip in and out of the "pocket."  To make -it words, the kids can select a feather and clip it on the brown shape above Tom's head with a clothespin.  The -it shape is attached with masking tape, so it will be easy to change word families. 

At Hats.  We brainstormed a list of -at words - the kiddos were amazed that they could easily spell and read -at words.  They wrote the words we spelled onto the hat band.