Thanksgiving for Preschoolers - Part 2

Yeah, I know. It is December and I'm still posting about Thanksgiving. Eeek! I am way behind but to be honest, I had not expected to encounter any problems with picture posting! I am so glad it is behind me now (I literally obsessed over the problem!). Anyhow, here are some more Thanksgiving activities I put together for Adrian, 4.5 years old. I know it is "a bit" late for you guys to put them in action but there is always next year and besides, these are just way too cute not to be shared... :)

Handprint Thanksgiving Turkey - Make sure yours is spelled right! :)

Adrian is not a huge fan of the arts. Somehow, he doesn't mind when it involves paints though. For this, I used various earthy washable non-toxic colors. They can either be painted on your child's hand or you can paint them on yourself. In Adrian's case, I painted them on his hand, let him press it down firmly and on once it was dry, he drew on the legs with a marker, chose a goggly eye, glued it on and I finalized with the misspelled greeting! :) Gotta hand it to the mama to ruin the art project of her young one! :) The handprint turkey project was previously featured on Kaboose which is where I first saw this idea.

Turkey Feather Plucking

I thought this would be totally fun but I guess I needed more feathers or maybe the feathers needed to be contained or maybe it needed to be more like a race or festive or something? Adrian took this very seriously and tried his best to pluck only 1 feather at a time. I was simply asking him to pluck feathers knowing it is difficult to pluck feathers with tweezers. It became frustrating at one point for him. I showed him how to do it sideways since he insisted on picking one feather at a time and couldn't always pick it by the stem. Anyhow, next time, the timer will come in, a tiny bin, AND a load of feathers! LOL Idea...graciously taken from Mrs.Lee's Kinder Kids.

Make your Own Popcorn, Craft some and then Eat some

Ah...Fresh popcorn. There is nothing like the smell or taste of real, fresh, warm popcorn. With Adrian's help, I decided to pop some real popcorn in a pan with some canola oil. I let A. pour the oil and the corn and then we waited and listened. He didn't really care for the taste of popcorn but that's ok. We made it to taste it yes, but it was also for our craft. Adrian was actually quite concerned it wouldn't stick in our craft but it did. For our Indian Corn craft, we used liquid glue and pressed a bit and let dry and it worked. I pre-cut a template of green construction paper prior to school time.

Writing Practice

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a great Free package about Thanksgiving. I didn't use much of it but Adrian really need more writing practice so I printed out this sheet for him. The graphics were very cute.

Homemade Turkey Buttoning Practice

Buttoning practice idea found on Counting Coconuts. I'm not going to lie...My son is still having issues with getting dressed and buttoning this turkey's feather on was actually tough for him. I deliberately made the holes big but it still was difficult. I guess we'll have to do more of that, eh? 

A piece of Pumpkin Pie anyone?

I know this is not the prettiest pie to look at but I am a bit short on time during the holiday season (are we all not?) and so although I initially planned on making this pie out of felt and all fluffy and cute, it ended up being cut-up pieces of constructions pieces. It sadly was as boring as it looks but it still worked as a math activity. We successfully added and subtracted and counted. Prompts can be such as: Mama ate one piece, Adrian had one too. How many pieces are left? Daddy arrives. He wants pie too. He has one piece and then wants another. How many pieces did daddy have? How many pieces were eaten? How many are left? Etc.

Not picture but very fun? Your very own Turkey Trot!

Many cities organize their own annual turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day. Why not hold your own for your little ones? This way, there is no pressure if the weather is not clement! :) Just keep it short and fun. A small prize won't hurt either! :)

Thanksgiving for Preschoolers - Part 1

Thanksgiving. It has come and gone and December is almost here but I am still taking the time to share with you today a few of the activities my preschooler and I did during Thanksgiving week. I will probably post another time -or two- on the topic at a later time.

Going Nuts

Nothing is prettier than a basket of un-shelled nuts. I brought some back from the grocery for the holidays and showed Adrian. First we explored them with our hands to feel their surface, smelled them, shook them and finally sorted them, counted them and learned their names. We finalized the activity by cracking open one of each. We once again smelled the nuts, felts the inside shells (walnuts can be prickly-careful!) and finally had a taste! I, of course, do not recommend doing this activity if your child has a nut allergy...I also believe that children are not supposed to eat nuts under age 6 because they pose a choking hazard. I was a bit nervous about the hazelnut being round and big so I asked A. to really chew it down! :) A. ended up LOVING the nuts and asked for more so I said we'd crack more later for snacking and use the rest in baking. :)

Spooning cranberries

Yes! Even in Germany we were able to find some fresh American cranberries to do this activity. My son loves berries and so when I mentioned "cranberries" he so wanted to eat them right away. :) Anyhow, the activity went well and was originally found on The Adventures of Bear.

Feeding the pilgrims and American Indians at Thanksgiving

Who's coming for dinner? How many people? I borrowed a small plastic table from my daughter's playset, put a number on it and told my son that the number he saw on the table was the number of people we were expecting for Thanksgiving. He then had to pick the small cut-up cards and arrange them around the table for dinner. I made the little cards using many clipart files made by PamsClipart. They included pilgrims and American Indians. Very cutely designed AND free. 

Quill writing

....is a lot more difficult than it looks...Of course this feather is not a real quill and this was simple tempera paint but it was not exactly easy to glide this feather to get any "ink" down. The idea was to "write like the Pilgrims" did back in the day. It was fun but a bit frustrating. The letters and shapes you can actually discern on the paper were made by me to show A. he could actually do it but had to trace over several times. Idea was seen on The Adventures of Bear.

The Mayflower

A cute little craft I had remembered seeing on a family crafting website a while ago. I thought it was Family Fun or something but I can't find it now. Anyhow, I had kept it on the back of my head hoping I wouldn't forget it when timing would be right! :) Teaching about Thanksgiving to a young 4 year old can be a bit tough but I thought this was a nice way to introduce it. Adrian made the Mayflower himself. We opened up a walnut, used one of the halves and he filled it with some yellow play doh. Then, he stuck some sails (which I pre-cut as his skills are still developing) on the toothpick using some pieces of tape. Finally, the toothpick was inserted in the play doh and we had our Mayflower replica! Adrian loved telling his daddy how he arrived to America on the Mayflower. It made me laugh. Truth be told. Adrian, like the Pilgrims arrived to America by ship for the first time but it was not with the Mayflower...

Linking up this post to:

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.