I Can Help Too! Lesson Plan

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What We Are Learning
 

Social Studies Focus:

Thanksgiving

Social and Life Skills Focus:

social awareness/relationship skills

 

Theme Vocabulary:

Thanksgiving, shopping, delicious, decorations


Skills We’re Practicing:

group discussion, critical thinking, vocabulary, manners, visual discrimination

  • In Mo Willems’s The Thank You Book, Piggie is on a quest to thank everyone who is important to her. But there is one person she is forgetting to thank. As you read, ask children to guess who they think is being forgotten. Afterward, encourage children to talk about the people who they are thankful for.

Help Feed the Turkey!

Materials: square tissue box; brown tempera paint; paintbrush; orange, red, and yellow construction paper or feathers; scissors; glue; number cube; googly eyes; small bowl; acorns, seeds, or corn kernels

  • Practice math skills while feeding a “turkey”!
  • To prep, make a tissue box turkey. First, remove the plastic insert from the tissue box. Then paint the box brown and let it dry. Cut red, orange, and yellow construction paper into “feathers.” Fan out feathers and glue them to the bottom side of the box. Cut a triangular beak from orange paper and a snood from red paper. Then glue the beak, snood, and googly eyes above the long side of the hole in the tissue box to make the turkey’s face.
  • Put acorns, seeds, or corn into a bowl. Have students roll the number cube and put that much food into the turkey’s mouth. Once the bowl is empty, the turkey’s belly is full! number recognition/counting

Thanks to Fun Learning for Kids for inspiring this activity!

Materials: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 1/4 cup salt; 2 tablespoons cream of tartar; 2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice; 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 tablespoon vegetable oil; 1 cup water; 12 drops yellow food coloring; 7 drops red food coloring; small pot; burner; items for pretend play (mini pie plates, cotton balls, rolling pins, pretend play pie cutters, plates)

  • Make sensory play festive with this deliciously scented play dough!
  • Make play dough in advance. Combine dry ingredients in a small pot. Add wet ingredients. Mix over medium heat, stirring until dough forms into a firm ball. (It takes only a few minutes.) Remove from pot, let cool, and knead. Store in an air-tight container until it is ready to use.
  • In class, set out dough and pretend play items, and encourage children to make mini pies. They can roll out the dough using rolling pins, put it in mini pie plates, and add cotton balls as “whipped cream”! When they’re done, they can use pretend play pie cutters and plates to “serve” each other their pies. sensory play/fine-motor skills