For my Thanksgiving story time (aka. Week 8) I concentrated more on the craft portion because there are so many great Thanksgiving crafts! But it’s fun to read cute holiday books too.
Books
We read Thanksgiving in the Barn by Nadine Westcott, a fun pop-up book that is also short, which is always a hit with the younger kids! The second book is another holiday favorite of mine that I usually read every year, Dav Pilkey’s ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. This is a really cute story with a happy ending, that is written in the traditional rhyme of the Night Before Christmas. Eight children take a field trip to a turkey farm, run by Farmer MacNugget (heh heh.) The farmer slips from his Santa-like persona to a slightly more sinister character as the children realize what is going to happen to their new feathery friends. If the group I’m reading to looks a bit uneasy, I will jump in once or twice to remind them that the book has a happy ending, not to worry! It really isn’t all that dark and the humor balances it, but it does show Farmer MacNugget holding an axe…. Eh, well, at any rate, it DOES have a happy ending, unlike the real Thanksgiving dinner 😉
Songs & Rhymes
I said the rhyme Five Little Turkeys by the Barn Door and use a a velcro turkey set (made by a friend of mine) that has five turkeys on it. As we count down, I choose a child from the group to come up and pull a turkey off. I will usually have to say the rhyme more than once so everyone can have a turn. I had only 6 kids (of walking-age) at my Wednesday program, so I had the 6th child pull off the 1st turkey on the 2nd time around saying the rhyme (does this make sense?) and then I did the rest. I did it very fast and in a silly voice so the kids wouldn’t try to get a second turn!
Then I asked a particularly grumpy 4 year old what song or dance she wanted to do. This got her back into the group and she chose the Hokey Pokey (same girl from last week!) and I asked her to help me in case I got it wrong.
Craft
OK, so I am kind of obsessed with Pinterest at the moment and I have found some really cute ideas for story time and teen crafts, as well as library displays. I saw these super cute turkey place cards had to make them. Of course, I saw them Sunday night and since I didn’t really like the craft I had planned, I went in early Monday morning to prep for the new craft. Luckily I had everything in the craft cabinet!
I used white card stock for the main place card (the finished product is too heavy for construction paper), scrapbook paper for the feathers (I chose sheets with mostly browns and reds, but through in some brighter colors to offset) and brown construction paper for the body, which is a big circle and a little circle (cut with the Ellison Die.) Then I just cut little orange beaks out and drew on some eyes, though I put out googly eyes for the kids, since they like using them. (I wanted mine to be classy – ha.) There was no cutting for the kids and we used regular Elmer’s glue – glue sticks don’t really cut it for this one. I made a sample and then made more while the kids did theirs, so I ended up with enough to bring to my parent’s house for thanksgiving! We also had enough pieces leftover to use for our drop-in Thanksgiving craft, held the day before Thanksgiving. (For this craft, the kids could also make leaf place cards and paper-bag turkey center pieces.)