Quick & Easy Thanksgiving Story Time With Ten Fat Turkeys

I’ve had the idea for this blog post in my head for over a month now… Unfortunately, since my house was hit by a plague recently, I’ve fallen behind on getting new posts together. So, this post is going up much later than intended, but still technically before the Thanksgiving holiday! I’m going to count that as a success. Read on to check out my idea for a super simple Thanksgiving story time, as well as our favorite choice for a turkey-filled read aloud!

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READING TEN FAT TURKEYS FOR THANKSGIVING STORY TIME

Tony Johnston wrote Ten Fat Turkeys. He’s created a rhyming tale about turkeys performing all sorts of antics. The activities the birds are performing are silly, which kids enjoy. Turkeys blowing bubble gum or roller-skating will have young readers giggling. Counting down from 10 to 0 is fun when you’re following the rhythm of the poem. My boys love the repetition of ‘GOBBLE GOBBLE WIBBLE WOBBLE’ through out the book- it’s a phrase that just begs you start dancing like a turkey! Rich Deas provided the illustrations. He’s captured such crazy personalities and quirky facial expressions throughout the book. #thelittleone loves thumbing through the bright pages, to see what all those turkeys are up to!

LEARNING DURING THANKSGIVING STORY TIME

I put together a super simple, very quick activity for #thelittleone inspired by Ten Fat Turkeys. The nice thing about this activity is that it’s not tied to only this book. You can very easily pull out the supplies for any Thanksgiving or turkey book you may have at home. Versatility is always a benefit! I through this project together on impulse. #thebigone was baking a pie with my mom, and #thelittleone was feeling left out, so I improvised with some materials I had on hand. You can easily recreate this project after a quick trip to the store, if you don’t happen to already have everything.

Materials:

• Feathers.
  • If you’d like to work on color recognition, multicolored works best.
  • If you’d like to work on counting, any color is fine.
• Clay or play-dough.
  • If you’d like to work on color recognition, you will need colors to match the feathers you chose.
  • If you’re like to work on counting, any color is fine.
• A tray or cookie sheet to protect your work surface.
  • Aluminum foil or wax paper would likely work well also.

Directions:

1. Form the clay into small balls, to represent turkey bodies.
   1. Adding faces to the front of the balls is option, but my kids had fun with it. A little extra creative sculpting is a good thing!
   2. Kids can strengthen hand muscles while forming the balls, which is great for future writing skills.
2. If you are working colors, encourage your child to poke colored feathers into the matching turkey body.
   1. We talked about the colors while we did this.
   2. Counting how many feathers you added is a great to way to throw some math into the mix as well.
3. If you are working on counting, assign a number to each turkey body. Have your child stick the appropriate number of feathers into each turkey body.
   1. Ex: Ball 1 gets 1 feather, ball 2 gets 2 feathers, etc.

This activity is so fun and simple. Kids love the hands on nature of it. It’s a perfect choice to keep kids actively engaged in learning while Thanksgiving dinner is still being prepared, or while you’re waiting for the pie to be served after dinner. Older children may prefer a drawing or writing activity designed to help them count their blessings. You can easily pair these ideas with my printable Thanksgiving adult coloring page, and the whole family will be calm and happy! Happy Thanksgiving friends!

Do you have any special ways you encourage learning around the Thanksgiving Holiday? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

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