The month of November is all about being thankful and we spend the month working on our Thanksgiving Research Project! This research project incorporates reading, research, writing, vocabulary and higher order thinking skills. We also do a lot of art projects, cooking and math and literacy centers as part of our Thanksgiving research project!
Each research project kicks off with a schema map. This is where we share what we already know about our new topic. As we complete our research project, we add new learning and address any misconceptions. For our Thanksgiving project, we spend a week on turkeys, a week on Pilgrims and a week on Native Americans so each week has a schema map!
As we work our way through our research and writing, all of our learning is recorded in our research journals!
Our research is conducted with read alouds and videos! And all of our learning is recorded on thinking maps or class charts! The students then use these charts to do their writing!
To bring vocabulary into our research projects, we work on labeling! We do whole group labeling and learn the words and definitions and then the students complete their own labeling in their research journals!
We also compare and contrast the Pilgrim kids to ourselves and create a Venn Diagram!
Thanksgiving Research Project: Art
I am a firm believer in the necessity and value of art in our classrooms. As part of our research projects, we do art projects. During these art projects we have great conversations about what we are learning. This allows us to work on our speaking skills, our vocabulary and share our knowledge! And we’re creating amazing art!
The rainbow turkeys are from The First Grade Parade! The abstract turkeys were created by giving the kids strips of paper and letting them make turkeys!
These hanging turkeys are my all time favorite! They’re easy and they’re messy and they look great hanging from the ceiling! Yahoo.com even listed them as their NUMBER ONE turkey fail! TRUE STORY!
One of our favorite turkey projects is our sight word turkey! We assess the kids on their sight words and they get a feather for every word they know! Then they use their feathers to make a turkey! This project also allows us to have some great chats about sight words and what we can do to learn more words! And we even talk about how we’re thankful for the words we can read! (Available in our Gobble Gobble creation!)
Directed drawings are an easy way to do art in the classroom and they are a great way to work on listening and following directions! Our pilgrims turned out great!
These pilgrims are made from paper plates and paint! They boys make boys and the girls make girls!
And seriously, everyone needs turkey leg hats! Paper bags, newspaper and an epic Thanksgiving hat!
Class Totem Pole!
As part of our learning about Native Americans we learn how they use totem poles to tell the story of their tribes. So we work together and create a class totem pole to tell the story of our class! To learn more about this project, click the image!
Thanksgiving Research Project: Math and Literacy Centers
Our research project includes hands on, engaging and differentiated centers for math and literacy! Click on each image to get the creation containing that center!
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Thanksgiving Research Project: Food
Of course we have food as part of our Thanksgiving learning!
Ranch and peppers!
We learn how Native Americans put fish in the ground to help grow crops so we plant a Swedish fish in our Oreo dirt!
And who doesn’t want to eat Turkey Droppings and Turkey Claws? (Click the image for your free labels!)
We end our Thanksgiving Research Project with a celebration of Stone Soup! First, we read different versions of the story and each child brings in a can of vegetables. We talk about how we can do beautiful work if we all work together. Everyone adds their veggies to the soup and I add the stone. When we sit down to eat, the stone soup picks a very special and deserving student to get the stone!
Thanksgiving Freebies!
Click the images to get these Thanksgiving freebies!
For more Thanksgiving ideas, check out these posts:
A Smorgasboard Of Thanksgiving
Wednesday Centers: Thanksgiving (Includes freebies!)
Thanksgiving Read Alouds
Thanksgiving Creations
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1 comment
Of course, I love your blog! it is an absolute treasure trove of activities that kindergarteners need and love. You are very ambitious to create all that you do AND offer it to other teachers in so many ways.
I’m a retiring kindergarten teacher–23 years of my life devoted to teaching kindergarten. I decided to blog about my career this last year. I offer some of my own materials and lesson plans and also a lot of the thinking process behind my lessons. IT’s a different kind of blog. I can’t imagine how you would have time to check it out, but I sure would like to know what YOU think!
Continued success to you and your lucky students/teaching partners!
https://goodbyekindergarten.blogspot.com/