Thanksgiving may be over, but you’re probably still working on all the leftovers… So today our preschool/family storytime was all about turkeys!
Everybody got a feather, and we sang a simple song about the colors:
Turkey wore his red feather, red feather, red feather
Turkey wore his red feather all day long
Turkey wore his orange feather… (etc)
We read Over the River by Derek Anderson, an adaptation of the old Thanksgiving song about going to Grandma’s house for dinner. In this illustrated version, we see a family of turkeys facing great dangers to make it to their grandparents’ house!
We did a flannelboard activity about identifying which things don’t belong, kind of like the old Sesame Street song:
Three of these things belong together
Three of these things are kind of the same
But one of these things just doesn’t belong here
Now it’s time to play our game. It’s time to play our game!
Then we segued into singing Old MacDonald with felt piece cues. After that, we read another book called I’m a Turkey by Jim Arnosky. It’s a book about the lives of turkeys in the wild, with a fun bluegrass kind of rhythm to the words.
We sang Gobble Pokey:
Put your right wing in, put your right wing out
Put your right wing in, and you shake it all about
You do the Gobble Pokey and you turn yourself around
That’s what it’s all about!
We read Five Silly Turkeys by Salina Yoon and used the felt board to illustrate the counting:
We sang the song “Baa Baa Black Sheep”:
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
One for the master and one for the dame
One for the little boy who lives down the lane
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
Then we listened to Raffi’s version which includes the many contributions of other animals for our food and clothing!
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
One for your sweater and one for your rug
One for your blanket to keep you warm and snug
Cluck cluck red hen, have you any eggs?
Yes sir, yes sir as many as your legs!
One for your breakfast and one for your lunch
Come back tomorrow, I’ll have another bunch
Moo moo brown cow, have you milk for me?
Yes sir, yes sir, as tasty as can be
Churn it into butter and make it into cheese
Freeze it into ice cream or drink it if you please
Buzz buzz, busy bee, is your honey sweet?
Yes sir, yes sir, sweet enough to eat
Honey on your muffin and honey on your cake
Honey by the spoonful as much as I can make
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
We sang “Row Row Row Your Boat” and danced and wiggled to the song. Then we did a fingerplay called Mr. Turkey and Mr. Duck, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”:
Mr. Turkey went out one day in bright sunshiney weather
Met Mr. Duck along the way and they stopped to talk together
They said:
Gobble gobble gobble, quack quack quack
Gobble gobble gobble, quack quack quack
Gobble gobble gobble, quack quack quack
And then they went away
(But Mr. Duck came back and said Quaaaaaaaaaack!)
We watched a video that is an animated version of the award-winning book Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback.
The video is well done and includes traditional Yiddish songs and funny Yiddish jokes, as well as an additional animated song which we didn’t show. You can view it on the DVD Strega Nona and More Caldecott-Award-Winning Folk Tales.
I picked this story because it actually features a turkey prominently, as well as many other farm animals… But primarily I picked this video because it is about being thankful for what we have, which is truly the meaning of Thanksgiving! Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.