Turkeys In Disguise - Gobble - Gobble! {FREEBIE}

This past week there has been a lot of talk about turkeys in our classroom.  In my family the turkey was always called "the bird".  My mom or grandma would say, "The bird is in the oven" or "How much longer until the bird is done?".  In our discussion about turkeys,  we learned that in some families, when looking in the fridge for left over turkey, the person looking would call, "Here turkey, turkey, where are you?".  Sometimes the turkey even had a nickname; like "Tom Turkey".  Some of the kids didn't know what the word "alias" meant.  So we talked about that for a bit too- turkeys having an alias name.

After we talked about nicknames for turkey in our families, we of course talked about how we liked to eat turkey!  Some liked everything on it; cranberry sauce, gravy, and stuffing! <ew!>  Others, didn't like anything at all on it - no gravy -nothing!

Finally we discussed how we would feel if we were the turkey and were supposed to be dinner.  Of course everyone said they would run away and hide!

That led us right into my new little easy reader, "Turkeys in Disguise".  First, I read it to them out loud.  Later, we took turns reading through the pages of the book together.  If you haven't read it yet, your gonna love it, it's such a cute little story:)

Of course as a teacher, EVERYTHING has to do with learning - even turkey:)  So... we have turkeys disguising themselves so they won't become turkey pie.  What else might they disguise?  How about words?  Yep, that was our next learning adventure - disguised words - contractions!  These cute little turkeys not only disguise themselves, but words too!  There are two hidden words in each contraction.  That was our introduction to contractions.  We had to find the two words these clever little turkeys had hidden in each contraction.  It turned out to be a pretty good illustration - the kids had fun and I think they "got it" too:)

Wrapping up toward the end of the week we made "Turkeys in Disguise" headbands.

 They of course had a learning purpose - Reader's Theater!  Yep, reading fluency can also be taught to the turkey theme:)

Finally I sent them off with some "homework".  Turkeys in Disguise reward posters!

It was fun to see what they came up with:)  Here are a few:

 This one is a little hard to read.  It says "Eggbert" is "1 hour old" and he was last seen "in his mother's nest!"  He is wanted because "his mother misses him":)

This Turkey's name is "Sparkles" and she has lots of glitter!  (Sorry, I was having a hard time capturing the cuteness of some of these with my camera:()

 This turkey is disguised as a Laker and he was last seen playing basketball.  If you have any information about his whereabouts you are encouraged to call lakersnation.com.  It also says he is wanted by the owner of the turkey pie factory - oh no - lol!!

I gave them all the option to use "googly eyes".  Everyone decided to use them - it sure does give the turkeys a funny look!:)

 This turkey was done by one of my older kids.  He actually went with a historical theme.  He called his turkey Alexander the Turkey.  Apparently he was fleeing from Darius II, who knew?

 This is "Bull Fighter Turkey"!

So now I'm curious - Does your family have a nickname for turkey?  What is it?  How do you like to eat your turkey?  (Personally, I love my turkey smothered in lots of gravy:)

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to click on the freebie picture for your FREEBIE:)

Gentle-Shepherd Product Reviews & Giveaway!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I am doing  some product reviews &

a Giveaway for my new friend Diane at 

 Gentle-Shepherd!   

Diane has also just opened up a new store at Teachers Pay Teachers.  If you haven't visited her store you should go visit it after you are  done here! 

 

 

 

 

 

Gentle Shepherd

FARM ANIMALS MATCHING CARDS w' word lists in 4 languages

The first product I wanted to share  with you is Diane's Farm Animals Matching Cards.   These are

so cute and you will just love the graphics on them.  They are all hand drawn and my kids really love them!

She has provided the matching cards that you can print out to play games, use as activity center labels, put on magnets, or use as writing prompts.  The activities you could do with them our limitless, but Diane has also provided some suggestions for their use. 

This one suggestion I just loved and so did my kids.  Diane gives the sounds that all the animals make in different languages!  Well this was a kind of new concept over here!  Animals speak different languages???  Well yes...and they also have different names in different languages!  We have found out living in Central America that sometimes animals here, dogs especially, will NOT respond to English commands, but they most definitely know Spanish commands!  We have also learned that people from other countries make different animal noises then we do in English!  For example chicks in English say "cheep, cheep" in Spanish they say "pio, pio".  Have you ever  heard the song "Los pollitos dicen pio, pio, pio, cuando tienen hambre cuando tienen frio...." ?  If not you can hear it here.  It´s  a fun song and my kiddos have learned a lot of  Spanish from that one song alone:)  So this is a great activity that Diane had suggested... we all enjoyed  it and I know you will too!

Here are some more pictures of her hand drawn Farm Animals...Aren't they cute???

Another product we had the pleasure of reviewing is

Easy Peasy Penmanship - CAPITAL LETTERS - for young children beginning to write

This is what Diane says about this product...

" There are large boxes to write in, then circles, and much later some lines to write on.

For every letter of the alphabet, there is a page with a dotted letter to trace and three large boxes. There are a variety of other practice pages for learning and review, too.

These work pages are for learning to write capital letters (Lower case letters are not introduced in this book). Capital letters are easy for children of four or five to begin with, because they require less fine motor coordination than writing lower case letters.

There are five different sets of pages in this ebook. Pages in set one have three large boxes to write in, and in set two there are four circles to write in. In set three pages have circles and lines, and set four has lines only. In set five there are compound words and short phrases (with no lines-- for less stress; so young kids can focus on letter shapes instead of on their exact placement).

There are 141 different print-out pages, and a total of 230 pages in the e-book (some pages are repeated in the first section, to provide an option for convenient printing out). "

These writing worksheets are so simple for emergent writers to practice writing.  There are no distractions for easily distractable children and they know just what to do!

 Look at how nice that writing is!  We really enjoyed these.  There are no confusing lines, just a circle or line to write the letter in!  Perfect!  The kids felt very pleased with their writing and so did I!

We have also been using Diane's Preschool Beginning Notebook Set and Counting Cards.

This first set includes pages to help a child learn

• alphabet letters 
• numbers to 20
• shapes
• days of the week
• a rebus rhyme
• 2 traditional songs

Fifteen different pages, covering numbers 1 to 5

These are also hand drawn beautifully...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diane's counting cards are great for Pre-K -K.   You could use them in your math centers - just   laminate them  or put them in page protectors and they are ready to go

We printed and added all the pages to my preschooler's notebook and had fun with the different activities.

 They would also make great worksheets for cutting and pasting,  assessments, number recognition, sequencing, and counting order. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 You could also use them vocabulary building by talking through each picture.

We enjoyed all of Diane's products and I know you will too! 

Now for the Giveaway!  

There will be

 5 winners who  will receive the 

 Preschool Beginning  Notebook Set 1 

 

AND

Farm Animal Matching  Cards

AND

a choice of 2 things from  Thetravelingclassroom store!

So go ahead enter and get your raffle tickets, I hope you win!

( You do not have to do everything but the more entries you do the more chances you have to win!!! )

 

 You will have everything you need to have some fun with your Pre-K through Firsties and your older kids too!

 

If you can't wait, go ahead and hop over to her store and pick them up:)

 Have a great day!

***Digital Paper on the Giveaway picture from Janet at Mrs. D's Firsties- Thanks Janet:)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Purim Sameach!!

This past weekend we celebrated Purim here in Panama with some friends.



Purim is a fun Jewish Holiday just like Hannukah. It is a celebration based on the book of Esther in the Bible during the time of the Medes and Persians about 500 years before Yeshua (Jesus). (Purim is usually in Feb. or March every year).

We had a wonderful time. We played lots of games; bean bag toss, musical chairs, hit our Haman Pinata, and had a costume contest! There were lots of prizes and yummy food for everyone.


This is a picture of everyone with their cast of characters on spoons for our Purim Readers Theater and play.

Here they are:  King Xerxes, Haman, Mordecai, Esther (Hadassah), Queen Vashti

Our huge Hamantashen cookies with brownie centers.  mmm- delicioso

Party Favors:)

Our Haman Pinata!  Boy, was this a blast!  Candy was flying everywhere & he lasted a really long time... everyone got a turn!  It was hilarious watching the kids diving for the candy:)

Another picture with the girls in their pretty Queen Esther style Dresses.  Each one had their own perception of what a Queen Esther should look like:)

Do you like the rain boots & butterfly wings?  She walked around feeling so pretty in her outfit!  So cute!

If you haven't done anything for Purim yet you should check this out!

Everything You Need To Have a Purim Reader´s Theater!  It's not to late to learn some history about Purim and have some fun:)  Just click on the picture and it will take you over to some more details in my TPT store.

If you didn't see our Reader's Theater video you can go see it here.

I used my Party Planner and I must say I was much more relaxed being organized!  I was able to sit

back and enjoy all the fun:)  If you are planning a party, I would definitely suggest using something to help you get organized.  It helps take away a lot of the stress and makes your party become more of what you envision it to be!  Just click on the picture to learn more about what is included in my Party Planner!

If you didn't grab the freebie for the planner, hop back over and grab it here!

I hope & pray you have a wonderful Purim holiday season with your family & friends!

Purim Sameach!!!