Turkey Trot (Preschool and Two's)

Time for Two’s

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Book: 10 Fat Turkeys

*I have ten turkeys I put up on my puppet stage, and as I read my volunteer will make one disappear. The two's shouted, jumped and screamed as each turkey flew away! We also counted all our turkeys which helped us learn our numbers!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Pumpkins

    Five little pumpkins sitting near a door:

{Alligator} took one, and then there were four.

        Four little pumpkins sitting near a tree;

{Pig} took one, and then there were three.

Three little pumpkins, with nothing to do;

{Duck} took one, and then there were two.

    Two little pumpkins, in the pale {November} sun,

{Horse} took one, and that left one.

        Being alone wasn’t much fun,

Until {Snake} took him, and then there were none.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey, Turkey

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

Board Book: Guess What Sweets and Treats

Action: Turkey Feathers

*I believe this was found in a Mailbox magazine, but I give out feathers to the two's and we put them up on my flannelboard around my turkey!

We made a turkey today, of course!

Credit: A Dab of Glue

Extra Books:

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: Little Mouse’s Big Breakfast (Make food for boxes)

*In this book, little mouse is out looking for breakfast. Until the cat comes along and decides to make the mouse his breakfast! So, I decided to make all the food and put it on boxes so the preschoolers could see all the found mouse was carrying along with him. The main reason is because mouse can't carry all the food and it comes crashing down! If you know me, I love to make things go CRASH! Yes, the boxes go crashing down!! I've included a picture below so that you can see what I did.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Pumpkins

    Five little pumpkins sitting near a door:

{Alligator} took one, and then there were four.

        Four little pumpkins sitting near a tree;

{Pig} took one, and then there were three.

Three little pumpkins, with nothing to do;

{Duck} took one, and then there were two.

    Two little pumpkins, in the pale {November} sun,

{Horse} took one, and that left one.

        Being alone wasn’t much fun,

Until {Snake} took him, and then there were none.

*Loved seeing animals eat the pumpkins!

Book: 10 Fat Turkeys

*I wasn't sure if I wanted to read this book or not, but I decided to at the last minute, and I'm so glad I did! I have ten turkeys I put up on my puppet stage, and as I read my volunteer will make one disappear. The preschoolers shouted, jumped and screamed as each turkey flew away! We also counted all our turkeys which helped us learn our numbers!

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey, Turkey

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

Storytelling: Pumpkin Changing Colors

*I have no idea where I found this story, so please speak up if it's yours. Basically you start out with a orange pumpkin and I made a pocket on the back of each pumpkin to stick food in. So the pumpkin decides to eat a banana. I will pause to ask the preschoolers what color do they think the pumpkin will turn to, before I show them the yellow pumpkin! We will go through different colors before I tell them it's time to change the pumpkin back to orange. You can do a version of this for October and turn your pumpkin into a Jack-o-lantern, but for November I did this. I fed my pumpkin an orange and said now what do you think will happen? Then our pumpkin turned into a pumpkin pie! Much to everyone's surprise and delight.

We made a turkey today, of course!

Credit: A Dab of Glue

Extra Books:

Turkey Trot (Two's and Preschool)

Time for Two’s:

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Board Book: Where is Baby’s Turkey?

*This is a brand new Thanksgiving book by Karen Katz, and the two's loved it!  I tend to forget how much they enjoy lift-the-flap books.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Pumpkins

Credit: Famlii

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey, Turkey

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

Book: There’s a Giraffe in My Soup!

*Did someone order soup?  I never expected the two's to go crazy over this book, but they did!  I did more of a storytelling with this one.  I had my volunteer deliver me a soup pot, with each animal hidden inside it.  After I opened my soup and discovered the animal, I sent the soup pot back with her and showed the pictures inside the book to the kids.  Then she would bring back my soup pot and we'd continue on.  I was afraid the story would be lost on the two's, but it wasn't.  The best part?  When I showed them the dessert page, which was a moose with a cherry on top, but I was supposed to receive a mousse!  The parents got that joke in the book, which made it even more enjoyable!

Action: Turkey Feathers

*This is a flannel we already had prepared at my library.  All the kids received a feather with velcro on the back.  Then they all brought up their feathers to stick around my turkey on the flannelboard.

Our craft today was a turkey!  We used scrapbook paper for the feathers, and the two's glued everything themselves.  You can order a kit if you don't want to prepare the craft yourself, just click the link below.

Credit: Oriental Trading

Extra Books:

Preschool Storytime:

Opening: Big Books

Book: Run, Turkey, Run! 

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Pumpkins

Credit: Famlii

Book: Chimpanzees for Tea!

*I was so excited to use this book, but I think it was a little over the kids heads.  My crowd was much younger than normal, but they enjoyed seeing the animals pop up behind me.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey, Turkey

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

Book: There’s a Giraffe in My Soup!

*Did someone order soup?  I did more of a storytelling with this one.  I had my volunteer deliver me a soup pot, with each animal hidden inside it.  After I opened my soup and discovered the animal, I sent the soup pot back with her and showed the pictures inside the book to the kids.  Then she would bring back my soup pot and we'd continue on.  I was afraid the story would be lost on the two's, but it wasn't.  The best part?  When I showed them the dessert page, which was a moose with a cherry on top, but I was supposed to receive a mousse!  

Action: Turkey Feathers

*This is a flannel we already had prepared at my library.  All the kids received a feather with velcro on the back.  Then they all brought up their feathers to stick around my turkey on the flannelboard.

Our craft today was a turkey!  We used scrapbook paper for the feathers, and the two's glued everything themselves.  You can order a kit if you don't want to prepare the craft yourself, just click the link below.

Credit: Oriental Trading

Extra Read-Alouds:

Bear Says Thanks

Dinnertime for Chickies

Lemons Are Not Red

Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake

Mouse Who Reached the Sky

Nanette’s Baguette

Peanut Butter and Jelly by Westcott

Please Say Please!

Run, Turkey, Run!

Thank You! By Ethan Long

10 Fat Turkeys

10 Turkeys in the Road

That’s Not Bunny!

Thanksgiving Graces

Thanksgiving Rules

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey!

Ugly Pumpkin

What’s For Lunch?

Turkey Trot (Preschool)

Opening: Big Books

Book: Nanette’s Baguette (With real bread for prop)

*For this book, I bought a long loaf of bread, and cut it up into four pieces. I had my volunteer help me read this book. As you read along, Nanette can't help herself and eats the baguette! As I was reading, my volunteer would break a piece of bread off and put it behind her on a plate. This would represent the piece of bread that Nanette had eaten in the story. I would tell the kids to let me know when my bread was being eaten, and they certainly did! The next time I use this story I will buy a much smaller loaf or just a piece of bread so that we can actually eat the bread and not just put the bread behind us on a plate.

File Folder: Turkey Hunt

*This is such an adorable file folder story, and the kids got very excited seeing the turkey change colors before them. Here is where I found this.

Book: 10 Fat Turkeys (With ten turkeys as props)

*The kids loved shaking around as I read the same stanza through the book, gobble gobble, wibble wobble! I also had ten turkeys propped up on the puppet stage, and as each turkey disappeared, one turkey would fly away behind me. The kids found that very amusing! Below is a picture of what some of our turkeys looked like that we had propped up behind me.

Dancing: Shake Your Sillies Out!

*Since our turkeys danced around I decided that we needed to do a little dancing ourselves!

Fingerplay/Flannel: “Turkey, Turkey”

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

*As usual, the kids went crazy telling me what color house to look behind for our turkey. Here is the website where I found this adorable game!

Action: Feeding Animals

*Click here to see what we did for this activity.

Game: Food guessing game APP

*The kids had a lot of fun guessing what food I was showing them.

*For the craft today, the kids got to make their own turkey finger puppet, which is below. Here is the website where the idea came from.

Games:

Scarecrow Knockdown

Normally this is the favorite game, but today I think all the other games won out over this one.

Pumpkin Soup Dipping

This was one of the top games. I took our big pot and filled it up with water. Then I dumped foam gourds, pumpkins and acorns that came from the dollar store inside. After that, the kids could scoop out the items and put them in our big bowl to make pumpkin soup! Next time I think I'll have out two pots for them to scoop things out of, it was such a big hit.

Letter Matching

This was also one of the top games. I found the free download for this letter matching game here. I didn't have room on my table to place all the letters of the alphabet, so I decided to spell out storytime. I wanted to make this into a sensory bin, so I hid the acorns inside a bowl of leaves. I taped down the squirrels to the table, and then the kids got to dig out the acorns and match them up to the correct squirrel. They really enjoyed this and I am now on the hunt for the next game!

Turkey Feather Matching

The kids really enjoyed doing this game also. I found the template for this matching game here. We decided to do pom-poms, since they've worked out well for us in the past.

Extra Read-Alouds:

Bear Says Thanks

Dinnertime for Chickies

Lemons Are Not Red

Little Mouse and the Big Cupcake

Mouse Who Reached the Sky

Nanette’s Baguette

Peanut Butter and Jelly by Westcott

Please Say Please!

Run, Turkey, Run!

Thank You! By Ethan Long

10 Fat Turkeys

10 Turkeys in the Road

That’s Not Bunny!

Thanksgiving Graces

Thanksgiving Rules

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey!

Ugly Pumpkin

What’s For Lunch?

Turkey Trot (2's)

Opening: Big Books

Fingerplay: If You Want to Hear a Story

Fingerplay: Five Little Turkeys

Five plump turkeys sitting on the ground.

The first one said “Oh my we’re getting round.”

The second one said, “I smell a pumpkin pie.”

The third one said, “But we won’t cry.”

The fourth one said, “Let’s trot, trot, trot.”

The fifth one said, “Quick, don’t get caught!”

In came the farmer and he turned on the light

And five plump turkeys trotted out of sight!

*I didn't get a chance to do this fingerplay, but I wanted to have five turkeys propped up on my puppet stage. When we came to the end of the rhyme, then I would have the volunteer trot my turkeys out of sight. Here is where I found this great rhyme!

Book: Run, Turkey, Run!

*I love reading this book at Thanksgiving, but it ended up being a little long for this age group. The kids did love patting their legs and stomping their feet.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Five Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting near a door:

{Alligator} took one, and then there were four.

Four little pumpkins sitting near a tree;

{Pig} took one, and then there were three.

Three little pumpkins, with nothing to do;

{Duck} took one, and then there were two.

Two little pumpkins, in the pale {November} sun,

{Horse} took one, and that left one.

Being alone wasn’t much fun,

Until {Snake} took him, and then there were none.

*We fed our animals pumpkins today, and the kids really enjoyed it.

File Folder Game: Turkey Hunt

*This is such an adorable file folder story, and the kids got very excited seeing the turkey change colors before them. Here is where I found this.

Book: Who’s Hungry? By Hacochen

*This is a really cute book to read. The kids enjoyed it, but were a little restless by this point.

Puppets: Feeding Animals

*Click here to see what I did with this activity.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey, Turkey

Turkey, turkey, come and play.

What color house are you in today?

*We ran out of time today to hunt for our turkey.

Fingerplay/Flannel: Turkey Feathers

*The kids had a blast helping turkey with his feathers! I have a turkey I place on the flannelboard, but he is featherless. I pass out different colored feathers, and then ask the kids to place them around my turkey. Always a big hit with the 2's.

*For the craft today, the kids got to make their own turkey finger puppet, which is below. Here is the website where the idea came from.

Games:

Scarecrow Knockdown

The kids had a blast getting to stack the scarecrow up and knocking him down over and over again!

*Monkey Banana Toss

The kids got to toss bananas into the monkey's mouth that we had taped to a round laundry basket.

*Pumpkin Soup

*This was the favorite game of the day! I took a cauldron and put a couple of inches water in it. Then I dumped foam gourds and pumpkins inside. The kids got to scoop out the gourds and pumpkin with a ladle and place them in the bowl. Then do it all over again!