Thanksgiving on Thursday - Magic Tree House

I made a unit to go along with Thanksgiving on Thursday from the Magic Tree House Series. My kindergartner LOVES these books. 

Included is a reader's journal and comprehension questions for each chapter of Mary Pope Osborne's book, Thanksgiving on Thursday, Magic Tree House book #27.
Included are 14 pages for the journal and 2 pages for the answer key.
Some questions are open ended, some multiple choice, true and false, or even a drawing answer. Uses context clues, inference, and general understanding and comprehension as they read.
 
This can be used in guided reading groups, literature circles, novel study, or to check comprehension after reading aloud. I just made this one and posted it. But I have used ones similar to it many different ways in my classroom.

 

If you are interested in this product look for it at Teachers Pay Teachers by clicking  here. Or at Teacher's Notebook by clicking here. Check them each out for sales. At TPT it will randomly be on sale. But at TN it will be on sale now through Thanksgiving. :)

Thankgiving is Almost Here

I just love Thanksgiving. Really, you can fast forward through the big meal and give me the leftover turkey to make turkey sandwiches on a roll. That is my favorite!!

To get ready, we have be learning about turkeys. I have not made anything...YET on turkeys or Pilgrims. I hope to, but time is running out quick. Plus, I can't find my turkey file. I will post as soon as I make something.

So instead of making things, I have spend tooo much time digging through things online to print out for my boys. (I should have made one, it would have been faster). Oh well.

Here are some of their favorites we have done with Turkeys:
*The typical tracing hand to make it look like a turkey. We identified parts of a turkey (tail, wing, feet, wattle, beak, etc.)
* Learn about the "wattle".
* Watch "Free Birds" at the movie theater.
* Many youtube videos of turkeys.
*I verbally played a game of "what does the turkey eat". I'd call out different things and they had to tell me if a turkey ate it. Example: acorns (yes), insects (yet), pizza (no), etc.

Pumpkins Thematic Unit - Letter P

This week we began out Letter P, Pumpkin unit. The boys have been dying to carve their pumpkins, so I figured it was time.
I do 99% of this with my newly turned 4 year old. My 5 year old is in Kindergarten and goes to public school. Some of these activities we do all together like the science lessons and I save some of the harder things for him. For example in this unit I have a compound word activity made for him.

To get my unit you can find it on Teachers Pay teachers by clicking here.   Or you can also find it Teachers Notebook by clicking here.

Here it is in action:

 Letter P Activities - Making the letter P look like a pumpkin (above). Below- a letter P sort. I even thew in a lowercase b to confuse him. But he noticed. :)

 Letter P dot marker page. This used to be his favorite activity, but he told me since he is 4 now, he needs to do "big boy work".  Oh boy!

 

This book I found online a few years ago.  Click here for the link. I made puppets (out of fun foam- a personal favorite) to go along with the story. We have been using this for about 3 years and they still love it!

Color Orange Collage - My youngest used scissors to cut the little pieces then glue them on.

 Pumpkin Waffles - food coloring and chocolate chips.

Despicable Me and Minions

My boys are a little behind the times. It is just recently they can sit and watch a full length kids movie. Since Despicable Me 2 was coming out, I rented the original for them. THEY LOVED IT!!

 

Supplies: winter hat, black pipe cleaners, wide black ribbon, fun foam in black and white, canning jar lids,  a glue gun, and scissors. It took about 5 minutes.

Directions: 

1. Cut pipe cleaners to size. Then bend over one end so it isn't sharp.

2. Poke pipe cleaners through the top to make the hair (no glue needed).

3. Pre measure the black ribbon.

4. Cut circles of white and black and hot glue them inside the lids.

5. Put the hat ON the child so the material stretches.**Otherwise it will not fit them**

6. CAREFULLY glue the black ribbon on to the band with the glue. Keep your hand under the hat band so you do not hurt your child (but there is a double layer of material, but you want to be safe).

7. Then put glue on the back of the "eye" and glue that to the desired eye location on the front of the hat. 

That is it!! Easy Peasy!!

Thanksgiving Bundles

I'm getting prepared since this season comes and goes very quickly. I'm trying to keep up with all the upcoming holiday themes.

I've added a few new Thanksgiving new items to my stores. Check it out!

 

This Thanksgiving bundle is for grades 3 or 4. It includes 6 worksheets.  For my TPT store click here. For my TN store, click here.

*Compound words - turkey shopping worksheet

*Context Clues worksheet with turkey vocabulary

*Problem Solving & Sequence worksheet –Making Thanksgiving Dinner

*Singular and Plural Nouns worksheet – Thanksgiving themed

* Thanksgiving Sudoku

      *Nonsense Words (context clues)      

 Here is another writing and spelling bundle. This image below is from one of the the spelling center directions (or task cards) that is included. If you are interested click here for Teachers Pay Teachers or click here for Teachers Notebook.

What is included:
*Thanksgiving Spelling Story – Directions Page Only-See image above.

 *Turkey Spelling –Directions page, turkey without feathers page to color and feather patterns for students to write spelling words.
*Turkey Recipe-Directions Page Only - Students will use their own paper or writing journal.
*Leftovers Recipe – Directions Page, checklist, and themed writing page.

Frog Themed Birthday Party

My youngest is turning 4. Since he could talk, he has been asking for a "froggie birthday party". So this is finally the year. This is also his "first" friend birthday party (or non "family only" party). So since I feel like the slacker mom I decided to finally grant his wish and go all out...on the cheap side of course.

From experience with any party, you get lots of "no" RSVPs. So I over-invited and you guessed it... I have a houseful coming. I hope the weather holds out. I don't know how many trips back to the store I made to get more supplies for the goodie bags.

Here are some of the things I have planned. (I will add anything else after the party).

#1 Goodie Bags- I personally hate these (filled with junk and they get thrown away - but like I said I went all out for his first "real" party). Plus kids LOVE them!

 

Inside the goodie bags are: tattoos, frog stickers (cut into strips so they each get a few), plastic frogs, and glow bracelets (15 in  pack for $1). Frog cut out shapes (Hobby Lobby has a 24 pack, plus I used my 40% off coupon). Did I mention I am on a budget?? A stay on home mom selling teacher things online for a couple dollars each, isn't a millionaire. :)

 

 See, they turned out cute. The bags I got at Walmart. I think they were 3 for $1. Then I have a circle stencil and a circle hole punch from my scrapbooking days that really helped out.

 

The other take home item instead of the pointy birthday hat is a froggie hat. I used poster board cut into strips and added eyes.

GAMES:

Pin the fly on the frog.

 I found a picture of a frog online. Then I copied it the best I can. (I'm totally impressed with myself, I am NOT an artist!) Then I found some free clip art flies from My Cute Graphics. I used my new computer skills to copy and color them and print them out. So each child has a different colored fly.

Lily Pad Walk (like cake walk)- 

Made from felt squares (4/$1 at Hobby Lobby). On the bottom right pad, that is the back of the pad. I have concrete floors, so I was afraid the kids would slip if they tried to take big steps on the pad. A previous year I had used tape and it pulled the stain off my floor. This year I added a rug "no slip" to the back of each lilly pad. This was an unexpected cost, but I didn't want them to get hurt or ruin my floor. 

I added a water lilly flower to only one lilly pad. Once the music stops and they are on the flower I will hand them their goodie bag. I plan to do this until each child gets their bag. Once all bags are in hand, we will go outside to do the pinata. Plus they already have bags ready for the candy.

Pinata-

 

This pinata (minus the candy) only cost me $2. $1 for each color of crepe paper and a free brown paper bag. I found directions to make it from this website and I have made one each year to save $20+ dollars.

Bean Bag Toss - Empty diaper box, construction paper, and bean bags... Tadaaa!!!

 

Ball Toss - 

I found these 2 beach balls online when I bought my paperplates and napkins. I think they were about $1.50 each. I plan to have 2 rows of kids (with parents in between since kids at age 4 can't catch and throw so well). Two lines like a relay team. First team to pass the ball to the end and back wins.

Cupcakes:

Then if was after the majority of the kids had left the party that I realized that I had a bag full of frog party blowers that I had completely forgotten about. I was so upset because I had spent time making these little guys. I took off the $1 store cardboard decoration piece and kept the red part, then made faces with fun foam.

 

FREE - Letter B - Birthday Thematic Unit

Since my last baby is turning 4, I thought I'd go ahead and share one of my full thematic units.

35 pages are included in this FREE unit. This is geared for preschool classes, homeschooling parents, or parents wanting to do something educational when it is time for their child's birthday.

There are both printables and teacher/parent lesson idea pages.

Lessons included in this Unit:
Vocab: birthday, balloons     Color: Red    Letter: Bb     Shape: Oval     Number: age of child (2, 3, or 4)

Greater than/Less than
What come next – patterning 
Simple Addition
What’s Different? 
Size Sort 
Graph and Dice 
Vocab cards
Syllable Sort
Letter B dot/magnet page 
Tracing Bs
Tracing Ovals
Oval Activities
Subtraction 
Letter B Search using different fonts
Color by Number
Cutting Practice 
Venn Diagram 
Number 2, 3, or 4 activities page
Bible Verse
Red Ideas & coloring page
Tic- Tac Toe Game
Letter B sort
Spanish Vocab Cards

You can get the unit FREE from Teachers Pay Teachers by clicking here.  Or you can get if for FREE from Teachers Notebook by clicking here.  Each one of these places will get you to this FREEBIE!!

Here are a few pictures of Day 1. We focused on the number 4...since he is turning 4. The number 4 with 4 birthday stickers, dice and tallys. The cake picture (included in packet) I cut out and then I added the background and candles to make it more fun. Plus he counted out the candles as he put them on. Oh, and I pulled out 2 of the Spanish cards to work on. I have more in the packet that go with this theme.