Turkey Time
There has been a lot of excitement in the air as Thanksgiving draws near. The class was busy this last week with turkey everything! We sang “There's a Turkey on my…”( you may remember “There’s a spider on my…” ?) reviewing our body parts and practicing imitating Ms. Rappaport. We worked on counting with “The Five Little Turkeys” and started our poem about Thanksgiving. The kids also decorated Ms. Rappaport up as a turkey.
The kids have really settled into school these last couple of weeks and things are starting to ‘gel.’ The daily routine has solidified in their minds and all the energy they were putting into figuring out ‘how to do school,’ has shifted into building off of pre-existing skills and accessing more of the curriculum. The kids are starting to shift towards facilitating their own play rather than relying on teacher support for play. They are spending more time interacting at each station during free play and I have seen an increase in their participation during rectangle time.
Unfortunately Ms. Rappaport does not have any pet turkeys, so she invited some stuffed doggies and kitties to visit the green room’s rug to play. The kids took turns pretending to be doctors and care takers. They took the animal's temperatures, listened to their heart beats, played ball, and tucked them into bed for naps. The teachers also had their hearts checked multiples.
We read several books with Thanksgiving themes. After reading Thanksgiving Is For Giving Thanks, we talked a little about what thankful means and took turns asking what we are each thankful for this year. The next day the kids painted a large feather and wrote down what they are thankful for on the feathers. They are currently in our class decorating our turkey Teddy bear and will come home soon.
We also had another guest from Mrs. Levine’s room come to visit. Our visitor was a large paper turkey that we needed to help put feathers on. The kids practiced their cutting skills by fringing paper feathers and gluing them on Mr. Turkey. I heard Mr. Turkey visited other class rooms as well and is now very fancy with all his bright colorful feathers.
We had multiple art projects over the last week and a half. The kids made several variations of turkeys. One turkey was made having the kid’s use cotton balls to paint paper plates. Another turkey was made by scrunching up tissue paper into little balls, gluing them onto a cut out, and then cutting fringes to make tail feathers. All of these projects are designed to strengthen fine motor and build basic skills. On Thursday, we made a fall trees using broccoli! It’s fun to experiment with different tools, but as with many experiments, sometime they don’t work out so great. Broccoli makes lovely fall trees, but not a lovely smell. Oops.
During story time, I took out an old lady friend from the tree to help us read our story; There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Pie. She came with a big appetite! I handed out some pretend food to each of the kids and they had to listen closely to the story to know when it was time for them to come up and feed the old lady(Ms. Rappaport’s puppet). After all that food, she needed a nap and returned to the tree for a snooze. She was so silly that we had her come back(after she had digested, naturally) and read the story again.
Lastly, we did some movement breaks throughout the day to keep our energy up, but also calm on bodies so they were ready to listen. I apologize if you hear the kids singing ‘A tooty ta ta, a tooty ta ta’ over and over again. I don’t use glitter, but a lot of the songs they bring home are contagious.
I hope you have a wonderful time with your families and enjoy the time off!
Ms. Rappaport
Conversation topics
What are you thankful for? A lot said Mom and Dad
What were some of the things the old lady ate? Pie, Cider, salad, pot, bread, cake, squash
Did the fairy visit? She did last week and decorated her plant with feathers for Thanksgiving, she moved some of her stepping stones as well
