Thanksgiving Hand Turkeys
One of my favorite simple activities each year are these classic handprint turkey crafts from Little Miss Fiesta. They are so cute! My favorite is that she even has a version in Spanish for my families that need the translation.
Thankful Placemats – FREEBIE ALERT!
On the day before Thanksgiving break, we also broke into our watercolor paints and I channeled my inner Cassie Stephens to teach them how to “wake up” the paint. Here’s how keep calm and love watercolor painting in kindergarten. First, I talk about how the paint is not wet at first, that’s why we call it watercolor. I am very dramatic and touch the dry paint and say “Oh no! I’m going to have paint on my fingers?” And the kids laugh and tell me it’s dry and I need to add water first. Then, we talk about the brush and how she has “pointy toes” like a ballerina.
We talk about how ballerinas are gentle and they swirl and twirl, but don’t jump in puddles or tackle our paper like a football player. (Sounds totally silly right? Yes, and it totally works with five year olds!) I then reenact with my paintbrush what not to do – stomping on the page and the kids tell me to be gentle; so I try again and swirl gently with my brush. Finally, we “wake up” the paint. We recite our poem over and over that goes like this “Dip Dip in the water, puddle in the paint.” We say it every time I go to change colors, or wake up a new color. As the kids chant our poem, I go to the first color and say “Wake up green!” and in a totally ridiculous voice, under my breath I reply “Oooh good morning!” and repeat for each color.
When my kids go to do this, it is honestly the cutest thing. A class of five year olds chanting, and saying “Wake up! Ohh good morning! Ola!” And guess what? Watercolor painting in kindergarten is stress free!
Their finished placemats came out so cute too! We let them dry at the end of the day so they could give them to their family for Thanksgiving.
We painted this easy Thankful Placemat Freebie from my TpT! We printed them on large white construction paper and sent them home with students to use for Thanksgiving day!
