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A fun and engaging way to bring seasonal fun to your classroom is through thematic units! Your students can practice a variety of literacy and math skills as they complete themed learning activities. In this post, I’m going to share some hands-on and engaging turkey activities for kindergarten that are perfect for a Thanksgiving unit. Keep reading for a variety of literacy and math activities with a turkey twist!
Have you ever read “The Great Turkey Race” with your kindergarten class? It’s a clever story that opens a discussion about story elements. As you read this funny book together as a class, you can complete an anchor chart together as a class. The students can identify the characters, setting, and events that happen at the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
After reading and discussing “The Great Turkey Race” as a class, you can complete a fun craft and writing activity. Your students will love predicting where the turkeys ran off to! After writing and illustrating their sentences, students can also create a cute turkey craft. There are three different hat options for the students to choose from, based on the three turkeys from the story.
You can read “Run, Turkey, Run!” with your class to practice story sequencing! This story is about a turkey who runs from hiding place to hiding place in order to avoid its fate as Thanksgiving dinner. As you read this story as a class, you can put together an anchor chart to show the sequence of the hiding places.
After reading the story and completing the anchor chart, students can complete their own sequencing activities. Students can color, cut, and paste each hiding spot from the story to a worksheet in the correct order from the story.
After talking about the turkey’s different hiding spots, you can ask your students where they would run! They can write their answers for this fun writing activity and craft. This project looks great on a Thanksgiving bulletin board. Everyone loves to read the kindergartners’ clever responses as they pass.
Another popular picture book in kindergarten this time of year is “Turkey Trouble.” After reading the book together as a class, your students can write about their favorite turkey disguise from the story. Then students can write about how they would disguise a turkey. After completing the writing, students can create their turkey disguise for the front cover of this writing and craft project!
Your students can practice both math and literacy skills with these fun turkey feather games! First, students will roll a die and then use the key to determine which color candy they need to place on the turkey.
Then students can practice beginning sounds! After choosing a picture card, students will name the picture and decide what letter sound they hear at the beginning. They will then find the corresponding letter on the turkey feathers and cover it with candy.
These games are perfect for math and literacy centers. Your students will love to play these games again and again! If you’d like to grab your free copy of these fun games, just fill out the form below and they’ll be delivered straight to your inbox!
My favorite math concept to practice during a turkey unit is making patterns! There are so many fun ways to incorporate patterns into a Thanksgiving-themed turkey unit study. You can work together as a class to create turkey patterns in this pocket chart.
After practicing a variety of patterns together as a class, students can create their own patterns by coloring the feathers on different turkeys. Students can also practice continuing a variety of patterns!
Another fun way to practice patterns is to create pattern books! Each book focuses on a different pattern: AB, ABC, AAB, and ABB.
Each book has students identify, continue, and create patterns in many different ways! Students might color, draw, or cut and paste in order to complete the pattern on each page.
Students can also create a turkey feather patterns book that includes all of the different pattern types that they’ve been practicing in one mini-reader. Your kindergartners will love to show off their patterns to their families with this take-home book.
Creating turkey pattern crafts is fun fine motor and math practice for your students! Your class can create a turkey feather pattern where they identify how many feathers the turkey has, along with the pattern type they used.
Your students would also enjoy creating a turkey craft that uses small squares of paper. Each feather of the turkey is a different pattern type. These colorful turkeys make a festive classroom decoration for Thanksgiving!
Your class will love creating their own turkey pattern treats! Each turkey is made from a crispy rice treat ball, with candy eyes and a candy corn beak. After placing toothpicks in the ball, students can stack colored cereal in different patterns. This is a tasty treat after a week of pattern practice!
Help your students practice fine motor skills as they create these adorable turkey hats. Creating crafts together as a class is also a great way for students to practice following directions.
The activities described above can be found in my printable turkey unit for kindergarten! In this resource, you’ll also find a suggested unit plan to help you map out these fun activities for a full week of turkey fun! If you’d like to take a closer look at these turkey activities, you can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on Teachers Pay Teachers.
If you’re short on time, be sure to add this pin to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post whenever you’re ready to download and print these fun turkey activities for kindergarten. If you’re looking for even more fun units for fall, you’ll definitely want to check out these scarecrow activities!
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
