Fun “10 Fat Turkeys” Learning Activity

Autumn Crafts and Activities for Kids

This time of the year is my favorite!  Once I finish putting away the Halloween decorations and the October pumpkin activities, it’s time for some Thanksgiving love.

One of my and Gabrielle’s most popular Made For Me Literacy units is the month of November lesson plans, “All About Turkeys.”

Even though Made For Me Literacy is created for special education students, our hands-on activities are also great for early learners! Homeschool teachers, day care programs and the parents of children home for the holiday vacations love the curriculum, too!

Visual recipes to make in the classroom or at home

The Pumpkin Pie in a Cup and Pumpkin Cloud Dough visual recipes in October’s, “All About Pumpkins” unit help ease your little learners into November’s “All About Turkeys.” The Turkey Cookie visual step by step cooking and Play Dough Turkey easy art recipes help kick off the season of gratitude.

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BONUS: Grab this free learning activity for emergent readers

Another fun activity to help get you and your kids in the Thanksgiving spirit is an easy and free printable for a craftivity I made to go with the popular children’s book, “10 Fat Turkeys.”

“10 Fat Turkeys” is a great Thanksgiving themed story time book to add to your young readers and special needs student’s reading program.

Counting backwards

The book’s repeated phrases and silly rhymes are perfect for my emergent readers. Plus, we get to practice counting down from ten, just in time for our upcoming subtraction unit. Besides kicking off a Thanksgiving celebration in your classroom with a fun read-a-loud, “10 Fat Turkeys” is a wonderful resource for teaching number sense.

Free Popsicle counting sticks activity

To introduce this book, I made turkey count-down sticks to help us practice simple math.

I taped one turkey onto a popsicle stick and taped a number onto the back. You will have 10 turkeys total, with numbers 0-9 on the back of them.

I then took my 10 turkey popsicle sticks and poked them through the bottom of a Styrofoam egg carton, keeping them in ascending order from 0-9. All 10 turkeys will be facing the students as you introduce the story.

Girls and boys gobble up turkey this fun game

As the turkeys fall off the fence, turn the popsicle sticks around to reveal the number of remaining turkeys. My students LOVE yelling out the next number, especially since they correspond with the rhyming words in the book!

After we have finished reading the book, we make our annual turkey cookies!

Easy recipe for cooking in the classroom

TURKEY COOKIES

For these cookies each student will need:

• 1 sugar cookie
• small cup of chocolate frosting
• 11 pieces of candy corn (10 for feathers and 1 for the beak)
• 2 Froot Loops (for the eyes)
• 2 mini m&m’s (for the pupils, which are optional)

I love this activity because we get to practice counting out the ingredients as we put them on. And the kids love this activity because it is delicious!

*Find more fun turkey activities in my and Gabrielle Dixon’s (Teaching Special Thinkers) Made For Me Literacy Curriculum, All About Turkeys.