Search Results for: Thanksgiving

Turkey Craft and a Thanksgiving Book

November 15, 2013 By Deirdre

We have a large supply of magazines at our house to look through and search for pictures in. Recently we searched through the food related magazines for pictures we could use to create a food full turkey. It was a little challenging to find large pictures of food. Why large pictures? I had created feather templates out of an old cereal box that was the size we were going to need to make the turkey’s feathers for our turkey craft and they were pretty large.

Putting Together Our Thanksgiving Craft

Turkey Craft and a Thanksgiving Book - Cutting Pictures

We flipped through a number of magazines to find large pictures. Thankfully I had picked up several cooking magazines from the laundry room in my mother in-law’s apartment complex last time we visited her. They are filled with pictures the size we needed. (I had fun just looking through them.)

Once a collection of pictures had been torn from the magazines, the cardboard feather template was placed on the pictures one at a time. JDaniel traced the outline of the cardboard feather onto the picture and then cut the food picture feather out.

Turkey Craft and a Thanksgiving Book - Feathers

With a pile of feathers ready to glue, the turkey body, and its elements were cut out. The eyes, beak, and waddle were glued down onto the turkey’s triangular body. Once JDaniel had finished getting the body together, he added the feathers. A little glue from a glue stick was placed on the bottom of the food side of each feather. Then it was placed on the back of the turkey’s body with most of the feather sticking up past the turkey’s body at an angle.

Turkey Craft and a Thanksgiving Book - Adding a Face

When all the feathers were in place, the turkey was glued onto a large piece of construction paper and declared done.

When people see the food filled turkey, they will probably notice how pretty he is. They won’t know how many wonderful skills JDaniel used to put it together. He had to search for large pictures, trace feathers and cut them out. He had to determine how much of the feather should be glued to the back of the turkey and how much to have displayed. Deciding how to arrange the feathers also needed to be done. A food full turkey craft provided the opportunity to work on a variety of skills.

What would be a good book to go with this craft?

The link below is an affiliate link.

Turkey Craft and a Thanksgiving Book - Silly Tilly's Thanksgiving Dinner

Silly Tilly’s Thanksgiving Dinner is a really wonderful Thanksgiving story. Silly Tilly passes out what she thinks are invitations to her Thanksgiving dinner. They really are her food recipes. Boy, is she thankful when she finds that her friends have all decided to bring food of their own to share?

We love books with happy endings at my house. This book had us a little worried as we read through it. A sigh of relief was almost audible when we discovered that the book had a happy ending.

I have decided to ask you to link your posts to the Read.Explore.Learn. Facebook page instead of running a link up. I hope you will stop by and share your children’s book related activities there

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Thanksgiving Science Activity – Sink or Float

November 12, 2013 By Deirdre

There are so many fun objects associated with Thanksgiving. JDaniel and I took some outside to explore in his water table on a beautiful fall day last week. The focus of this Thanksgiving science activity was sink or float. “Which of these objects associated with Thanksgiving are going to float and which of them will sink?” I asked him.

What objects did we use for this science activity?

Turkey cookie cutter
wire whisk
pumpkin shaped silicone cup
plastic napkin rings
metal measuring cup
small squash
plastic measuring spoon

Thanksgiving Science Activity- Sink or Float

It was interesting to see what sank and what floated. One type of plastic napkin ring sank and one floated. The silicone cup without water in it floated. When it was filled with water, it sank. Several things we thought were the heaviest and would sink did. The metal measuring cup and squash sank right away as did the wire whisk.

He played for awhile and I just enjoyed watching him test out objects and enjoy water play.After giving JDaniel time to play with objects in the water, we talked more about his findings.

I asked him the following questions:

Did the color of the object matter?
Does material the object made off matter?
Did having a hole in an object help it float or sink?
Does it matter if the object is solid?
Will an object that allows water to follow through it sink or float?

Doing This Science Activity in Other Settings

While JDaniel and I were together for this experiment, I think that leaving the objects out at the water table as an invitation to learn would have been fun too. In a classroom setting I think children would talk amongst themselves about what they were finding. Exploring sinking and floating would be wonderful in a variety of settings.

My Insights

I love talking through science experiment outcomes with JDaniel. It helps him understand what he is understanding about science and his thoughts on what we are doing in general. There is just something wonderful that happens when we are together exploring concepts. This Thanksgiving science activity on sinking and floating allowed for that.

If you like this science activity, here are more science activities you will love:

Exploring Turkey Basters

Planting a Pumpkin in a Pumpkin

Recycled Planter on a String

Thanksgiving for Kids -Table Setting Ideas

November 21, 2012 By Deirdre

Thanksgiving for Kids - Table Setting for Kids

Are your children looking for ways to help you get ready for Thanksgiving? Are you looking for something for them to do while you are rushing around your house getting ready for guests? Creating Thanksgiving crafts for kids that can be used on your holiday table is a great idea. These three table setting elements are easy to put together and if children are having to make eight or ten of them could take them a little while to make.

The turkey treat cups requires only wiggly eyes, some colored sheets of foam, and a clear plastic cup. Literally all you have to do is cut out feathers and a beak out of foam. Then glue the eyes, feathers, and beak onto the plastic cup. If you have wiggly eyes and foam that have sticky backs you don’t even need glue.

The Mayflower sail straw is just a piece of white foam cut into a sail. A blue straw was laced through holes punched into the sail. If you have straws of various colors, you could have the children create a pattern of straws with sails by having every other cup of the table be the same color.

The napkin ring can be made by wrapping felt around a toilet paper tube that has been cut down. A simple turkey can be created with felt or foam. The turkey is then glued onto the felt wrapped tube. I didn’t add feet to my turkey, but you could. I bet they would look adorable.

If are looking for a more formal look for your Thanksgiving table, you might think about creating a table setting like this for Thanksgiving breakfast or the leftover snack on Thanksgiving evening.

Here some more Thanksgiving for kids activities:

Paper Plate Turkey

Building Thanksgiving Words with Letter Feathers

Lantern Turkeys

Thanksgiving Science -Sink or Float

Thanksgiving for Kids- A Cornucopia of Prayer

November 20, 2012 By Deirdre

Years ago I was taught to pray for the area I lived in, the city and state I lived in, my country and the world. It was a simple prayer exercise that lead me to pray for my family and friends as well as people around the world. My prayers became less self focused and more others focused when I prayed this way. I decided the time before Thanksgiving would be perfect to introduce this method of praying to JDaniel. Thanksgiving is a time of thankfulness and gratitude. It is a time when we spend time with family from faraway and sometimes it is a time when we travel to places beyond our everyday world. This Thanksgiving for kids activity is a great way to explore prayer.

Thanksgiving for Kids Activity

JDaniel and I constructed a cornucopia out of paper plates painted brown as a visual reminder of those prayer areas. We filled the open end of the cornucopia with fruit and vegetables. The fruit stands for fruitful prayer. The vegetables were added just to balance the fruit. I wish I had a deep reason for having them there.

My family and I having been praying from the front of the cornucopia back each night. I think it has helped us each to focus on the world around us and the world beyond us. Our prayers are not as much focused on our family now.We are also trying to keep our eyes open when we are out and about to find prayer needs in our neighborhood, city and state. It has been wonderful to see the world through eyes of prayer. The our local world is filled with blessings we can thank God for and areas of concern we can ask him help with. We world beyond the one we drive around in has been a little bit harder. We can pray for things we hear on the news or global issues like famine and lack of peace. I think we may need to choose areas of the world to focus on and read about to broaden our world view.This has been a wonderful prayer tool for my family.

If you like this Thanksgiving for kids activity, here are a few more that you will like:

Lantern Turkeys

Handprint Turkey Puppets

Turkey with Food Feathers

Turkey Hat

Thanksgiving Kids- Gratitude Turkey

November 13, 2012 By Deirdre

This past Sunday I was teaching a lesson on gratitude and thankfulness to my Sunday school class of kindergartners. We were looking at how filled with thanks giving the Israelites were for all that had been given by God.

When I was brainstorming about how to help the children bring home the concepts I was teaching, the wonderful list of 21 Days of Contagious Gratitude on Inspired By Family Magazine came to mind. The list is filled with everyday items and concepts that children or anyone can be thankful for.

Why I thought couldn’t I create a turkey with feathers displaying each of the concepts covered on the list?

I created paper plate turkey head and placed it on a clothes pin to clip to the front of a basket. Then I gathered together construction paper, clothes pins, and markers to create the feathers.On each feather I wrote one of the concepts on the 21 Days of Contagious Gratitude. I change a few of the terms of their list to words I thought the kindergartners would know. Emotion was changed to feeling for example.When the children arrived in class, we talked about Thanksgiving and what it meant to us. We then talked about the story of the week on gratefulness and I pulled out our gratitude or thanks giving turkey. The thanks giving feathers were spread on floor and the children were invited to come up one at a time to select a feather and tell what they were thankful for.

They nodded their heads in agreement for most things as other children shared. They all agreed that the time of day they were thankful for wasn’t bedtime and the new baby giraffe at the zoo was everyone’s favorite animal. It was fun to hear their answers.

I can’t wait to do this with another group of students. Maybe JDaniel’s preschool teacher will let me share the activity with the class.

Until then I will be putting this thanksgiving or gratitude turkey out on our kitchen table. We will be giving thanks for each of the concepts covered on the feathers. Maybe my husband, JDaniel, and I can pick a feather each night to add to the turkey basket turkey.

The link below is an affiliate link. It was put there for your convenience.

Thanksgiving Kids Book

I love the tie children’s book to activities that we do. I can across a wonderful book to tie to this lesson called Thanks for Thanksgiving. This amazing book by Julie Markes points out that we have things everyday to be thankful for. What a wonderful lesson to share with kids at Thanksgiving time or any other time during the year.

Warning: This isn’t a story as much a a wonderful book that shares reasons for gratitude.It is just a great Thanksgiving kids book.

Read.Explore.Learn.- The Firefighters’ Thanksgiving

November 25, 2011 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie into children’s books. I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

The Firefighters’ Thanksgiving by Maribeth Boelts is a wonderful story about firefighters that try to make a Thanksgiving meal on a day when they get many, many calls for help.

Lou volunteers to cook the meal if the others will pick up the food on the grocery list. By the time they get the food at 9:00 a.m. they get their first call.

They return to melted ice cream and a messy floor apparently they didn’t have time to put the food away.

Each time they seem to get ahead on the meal the alarm sounds and they are off again.

When they return, they get their equipment ready for the next emergency and try to work on the meal again.

During one of the fires, Lou is hurt and is taken to the hospital. The firefighters return to the station without Lou and to an unfinished meal. They call their families and get ready for the next emergency without hope of a Thanksgiving meal.

Something amazing happens while the firefighters answer the last call. Friends, neighbors and people they have helped arrive and set up a meal for them. They leave them a note saying they are thankful for all they do!

Some of that wonderful meal goes to the hospital to be shared with Lou.

This is an amazing book. Much of the story is told in vivid illustrations by Terry Widener. Terry does a wonderful job complementing Marybeth Boelt’s words by drawing you into the action and events.

The message of giving back to those that have helped you is truly inspirational. It left us wanting to help people that have helped us and our community.

What did we do?

Made Cookies

I am not much of a baker, but JDaniel loves to bake. We went to the store and selected the frozen sugar cookie dough for the firemen that work at the fire station near JDaniel’s house.

Created a Turkey Treat Bag

We worked together to make turkey treat bags to deliver the cookies in.

Delivered the Cookies

Our local fireman was excited about receiving the cookies.

This post is linked to Serving Others Thanksgiving a link up on this post and Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, Let’s BEE Friends, La La Home Daycare and It’s Playtime .

Describing Thanksgiving Three Year Old Style

November 23, 2011 By Deirdre

Mom is in Timeout and My Time as a Mom is hosting a Kids Talkin’ Turkey this week. I decided to join in and see what JDaniel knew about Thanksgiving.We read several Thanksgiving-related books to build on his experiential background. Then I printed out some coloring pages with Thanksgiving themes and had him tell me about them. Below you will see his responses to each picture.He is not really into coloring so, I bought Wiki Sticks for him to use to outline each picture as we talked about it. He really enjoyed them. Here is what he said:

The Pilgrims traveled by boat to a place where they could spend time with God.

When they got there, they didn’t know how to do anything. That was not good. Squanto had to teach them. He showed them how to plant food and build homes. They lived due to him.

The Pilgrims were thankful that God and the Indians had helped them. They through a feast to celebrate. The food was great! Everyone had lots to eat. Thank goodness they got help! This post is also being linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

Pause Life for a Moment-Thanksgiving 2011

November 22, 2011 By Deirdre

I am pausing to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage with a cup of hot chocolate sitting on deck trying to enjoy the moments before the rush of the day takes over.

What am I doing today?

8:30
Drop JDaniel off at preschool. He may not want to leave me. He hasn’t wanted to go since his accident.

8:45
Finish packing for our trip to Arkansas to meet up with family at Mount Magazine for Thanksgiving.

11:00
Go to the preschool Thanksgiving performance and feast. This should be fun.

11:30
Attend JDaniel’s preschool Thanksgiving feast. It will be our big meal of the day. We will be flying at dinnertime.

12:30
Return home to get the final things done and recheck that all blog posts are set to run.

1:00
Make sure JDaniel has time to play outside.

1:45
Check to make sure my husband has his suitcase packed.

2:30
Try to make sure JDaniel does potty things that he might not do on the plane.

3:00
Make a hearty snack that includes veggies and fruit. We will be eating at the airport and probably won’t be having healthy foods.

4:00
Head to the airport and fly to Chicago.

5:30
Take out the Star Wars sticker book or magnetic construction site book for Jdaniel to explore.

7:00
Rush from one gate to another at the airport with carry on bags, a booster seat, and pulling rolling suitcases. We have super short layover. I am praying our flight is delayed.

7:30
Fly from Chicago to Arkansas.

8:30
Put JDaniel’s pajamas on while in flight so he can go right to bed when we get to the hotel.

9:00
Land and find rental car counter.

9:35
Drive to hotel that was supposed to be close to the hotel, but turned out to be 20 minutes away.

I am actually hoping everything goes smoothly and we won’t be pausing to long in Chicago.

Each of you probably has fifty million things that are going to keep you busy today. I am praying that you will find moment to pause and enjoy the fall foliage or just sit with a hot drink too.

Serving Others Thanksgiving Link Up

November 20, 2011 By Deirdre

Thanksgiving comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man, it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow. ~Edward Sandford Martin

Thanksgiving is about so much more than football games, gathering around a groaning table of food, and watching parades. It is about remembering all you have been given and taking the time to give to others.

This year there are so many that need to have us reach out and remember them. Please take a moment to think about something you could do for someone else.

If you write a blog post about it, please share it below. I would love for you to link it back to this post. It will let others know about this link up and may inspire them to serve others too.

What a joy it will be to see how you chose to make someone’s Thanksgiving special!

I will randomly select one person who links up to receive a $5 Starbucks card.

What did we do?

Walking for Charity

JDaniel and I participate in the Mission Backpack 5K and 1 Mile Walk. We did the 1-mile walk along with a dog friend JDaniel made. Thank goodness there was a lady who brought the dog along. JDaniel loved walking with him.

Mission Backpack sends backpacks filled with food home with elementary-age children on Fridays. Many of these children don’t have a lot to eat when they are out of school on weekends!

The entry fee we paid to walk will go toward food for the backpacks.

Sending Cards to Troops

Ladybird Lane offers a feature called Crafting for a Cause each month. This month the cause is Operation Cards for Soldiers.

This is wonderful project involves creating Christmas cards or writing an encouraging message in a store-bought card and sending them to:

Operation Christmas Cards

PO Box 102

Shrewsbury MA 01545

Cards need to arrive by 28th of November.

JDaniel illustrated pictures in store-bought cards.

I can’t wait to see what you have done. Please link up your post below sharing how you have given to others around Thanksgiving.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Thanksgiving at the Tappletons’

November 18, 2011 By Deirdre

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Thanksgiving at the Tappletons’ by Eileen Spinelli reminds me of some the interesting things that can happen when you try to make a Thanksgiving dinner.

What could happen?

The turkey could slip out the door.

The bakery could be out of pies when you finally get in line.

The salad could be used to feed a pet.

The potatoes could be splattered all over the kitchen.

You could end up with a house filled with people expecting a meal.

They could end up being fed odd and ends from the kitchen.

That could be what happened at the Tappletons’.

This wonderful family of foxes learns through it all that family and not food is what is most important.

What did we do?

Crafts

We made two turkey crafts together. They ended up being so cute.