Are you ready for some fun in your classroom or home this Thanksgiving season? You’re in for a treat because today we’re diving into some gobble-worthy Turkey Trouble Activities!
If you’re familiar with the hilarious and heartwarming book “Turkey Trouble” by Wendi Silvano, you already know it’s a Thanksgiving classic perfect for the little ones in your life.
In this blog post, I will share some engaging and creative activities that will have your students or kids giggling and learning at the same time. Whether you’re a kindergarten teacher looking to spice up your holiday lesson plans or a homeschooling parent on the hunt for some Thanksgiving-themed educational fun, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s dive into some Turkey Trouble activities that will make this holiday season one to remember. Let’s get started!
Turkey Trouble, written by Wendi Silvano, is a great book to read in November. Students will enjoy this fun book about Turkey and his idea to disguise himself as various farm animals to hide from Farmer Jake. He does NOT want to become Thanksgiving dinner, so our main character gets creative. Ultimately, he comes up with the perfect disguise: a pizza delivery man! Young readers will giggle at his hilarious attempts to escape his fate as the main course.
This is one of our favorite read-alouds, so I hope you enjoy this adorable story too!
There is no substitute for the action picture book, but it is sometimes great to have another model of reading fluency! Here is an excellent video of this book, read by Marc Maron.
This Thanksgiving book is so engaging for students. We JUST love Turkey!!! His actions are ripe for discussion.
The book is read repeatedly in an interactive read-aloud, with the teacher taking on the decoding role. The students engage in discussions guided by questions to establish a deeper connection to the story.
Remember, we want students to discuss the story with each other. Therefore, students turn and talk to their partner during this time. Reading comprehension really begins with listening comprehension. Students are exposed to new vocabulary and text structure during these lesson plans!
We start the week’s book companion activities with students making predictions. We love to see the way students put their thinking to paper. Some students in kindergarten children will often express themselves with illustrations, while others will lean into their transcription skills.
As students develop more literacy skills, you will see beginning sounds and more meaning made with the words they write.
Day 2 of Turkey Trouble is all about retelling the text details. First, we put the images of the story in sequential order. Then, students turn to their partners to practice oral retelling. If students need support with the events in Turkey Trouble, they can look at the whole group display to help them. This oral rehearsing is SO good for strengthening their oral language. Regardless of the book you use, please try to work this type of lesson in daily! Students need time for oral language activities.
This effective and fun activity can easily be uploaded to your Google Classroom, so you can have students work independently with their digital versions.
After practicing with a partner, students complete their own Turkey Trouble activity by retelling the book.
We have included an informational text about turkeys. On day 3, our lesson plans are about schema building by discussing what they already know about turkeys… Students share in the building of this anchor chart. The nonfiction book is a perfect addition to our Thanksgiving activities.
You can see the informational book about turkeys in this picture.
Then, students complete a response page as well. As you can see, each day, students work on answering comprehension questions and thinking about what they have learned.
As you can see, students will build their comprehension skills all week long with this turkey unit! You can find these read-aloud lesson activities in our Engaging Readers units:
With each read aloud book we study, we take 2 words out to focus on during our vobulary lessons. Here is one of the book we selected for Turkey Trouble.
We have added discussion teacher slides for Turkey Trouble as well!
This makes a great activity for your students to do during center time!
We love a good craft or two… or three…
This is an easy turkey-directed drawing. Directed drawings are a great way to build your students’s confidence.
Your students will have so much fun making their own clever turkey. This fun craft also strengthens their fine motor skills through scissor practice.
The pattern for this craft is included in the lesson plans.
Here is a whole bulletin board full of turkeys!
These watercolor turkeys are fun and a simple turkey craft your classroom will enjoy. Check out these fat turkeys!
A few years ago, we created STEM activities and centers to go with our Engaging Readers. This is the STEM activity for Turkey Trouble. You will find the directions and the printable activities in the November unit.
These students are measuring the wind’s force with a turkey baster and measuring.
And here are a few Turkey Trouble related activities for center time. They are differentiated so you can meet the needs of your class. This turkey math activity is a fun way for students to practice subitizing.
Students spin the word family spinner, then find the image that represents that word family.
Here are a few ready-to-go worksheets for math activities, too! These fun worksheets are no prep, and they are a great opportunity for some hands-on learning.
You can find these read-aloud lesson as well as other teaching resources in our Engaging Readers units:
In addition to this classic Thanksgiving book, there are even more silly antics with Turkey in these literature companions (Amazon affiliate link):
You can download this free template and edit it to make it your own! On the PDF version, each resource is linked so you can find it quickly.
To see additional Lesson Plan Posts like this, click
Are you looking for some more November books and lessons? Here are a few you may enjoy!
My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
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One Response
Thank you for providing this blog entry. We have a tricky time understanding the black and white pictures sometimes and seeing the retelling strips in action really helps me, help them!
That is a great reading for distance learning, too!