Turkey Art

Oops! I just logged in to post about what we have been doing this week when I realized that I never posted pictures from our turkey paintings last week!

Last Tuesday, we ended our short week with a fun turkey project. Using one of our Draw, Write, Now books, we had a class directed drawing of a turkey. After the design was sketched, the students traced in black crayon and used their watercolors to give it color. I love how each student was able to add their own details or personality to make it their own even though they all followed the same steps.

Thankful

We started off our short week this week, learning about the Pilgrim's journey to America on the Mayflower. We read about the voyage and each part of the ship online, then made these cute Mayflower's to write some facts we learned. Each student was required to write 2 or 3 new pieces of information they learned from our reading.

After we completed our Mayflowers we put together this cute turkey craft:

Awhile back we made coffee filter monsters by making a tie-dye coffee filter and pressing the color onto paper. I saved the coffee filter, knowing we could make something cute and colorful out of it later. Those ended up being perfect for our Turkey tailfeathers! So cute!

Finally, we finished up our secret project we worked on all last week: Thanksgiving placemats for our families! We had a mini lesson on how to draw people correctly, then students were asked to draw their family in the center of the placemat. They turned out amazingly great! I just love seeing all the different families portrayed by each student. Here are a few examples (ignore the flash. I had these laminated so they could be used as a placemat):

And, as promised, here are a few pictures of our Quilt of Thanks from last week!

We had so much to be thankful for! I for one am thankful for this wonderful group of students who work hard every day and try their best. Their sweet personalities bring a smile to my face every single day. I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving holiday filled with family and friends. :)

A Pilgrim's Life

Sorry I've been so behind on updating the last 2 weeks. I promise I'll be better after the holiday this week. Is anyone else as ready for a break as I am?!?

After we learned about Squanto at the beginning of the week, we took some time to learn about the life of a pilgrim boy and girl. We read Samuel Eaton's Day and Sarah Morton's Day, which take the children through the daily chores a Pilgrim child would have been expected to complete. After reading each book the students were asked to write a short paragraph describing what the child had to do first, next, then, and last. Then we made cute little Pilgrim boy and girl faces to go on the top, just like our Squantos from earlier in the week.

Everyone was surprised to learn what a hard life the Pilgrim children had and how hard they had to work from such a young age. This led to a discussion of things that we are thankful to have in our own lives that the Pilgrims may not have been so lucky to have had. On Friday we created a huge list of ideas of things we are thankful for, then each of my friends created a square to add to our I'm Thankful Quilt. On their square they had to list things they were thankful for in each box and then color the pieces to make it beautiful like a quilt square. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a picture of one of these. I'll see if I can take one today and post it later this evening.

Today, I am thankful that it is only a 2 day week! We have some fun Thanksgiving activities planned for the next 2 days to keep everyone busy before the extra long weekend!

Thanksgiving: Part 1

Yesterday we started our 7 day unit on Thanksgiving! This is always one of my favorite times of the year. So much to learn, and so many fun projects to complete with the kids!

We started out the unit reading a nonfiction text about the first Thanksgiving. We had a great discussion about how important it is to be thankful for what you have. The kids were shocked to hear that the Pilgrims had such a hard life. They completely understood why they wanted to have a celebration in thanks for what they survived and the life they had. We started working on a special project, but sorry parents, it's a surprise! I'll post about it at the end of the week :)

Today we used pebblego.com to read about Squanto. We wrote an informative paragraph about his life by choosing the most important piece of information from each section on the site and putting them together to create a complete nonfiction piece. To add something cute to the project we made a Native American head peeking out of the top of the reports. They turned out great!

After the students finished with their report they made their own Native American headdress. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of these. We talked about how the Native Americans did not write using letters like we do; they used symbols to represent different ideas. We looked at some examples of Native American symbols and each student choose some to draw on their headband. We completed the headband by adding 4 different colored feathers. Super cute!