3 Cool and Easy Thanksgiving Activities for First Grade

Inside: You’ll receive the cutest turkey poem, and directions for a turkey craft and pie graph. These activities are perfect for the primary grades. The craft and graph require some prep, but they’re easy and enjoyable for the kids! 

I look forward to Thanksgiving every year just so I can teach my first graders this turkey song. I wish I could sing it for you. It’s an easy tune and the kids love it.

But even if you don’t know the tune, it’s a great poem all on its own.

For a little added fun try dividing your class into two parts and chanting the poem back and forth, with one side of the class doing only the “gobbles”. Then switch parts!

DOWNLOAD: The Turkey Song

We also made Deanna Jump’s long-legged turkeys and turkey pie graph. They’re hilarious and the kids had so much fun.  Unfortunately I can’t link to the activities. When Deanna changed her blog design my links stopped working and I can’t find them anywhere.

But both activities are definitely worth doing so I’ll give you the directions.

How to Make Long-Legged Turkeys

1. Paint 3 paper plates (1 large and 2 medium) with brown tempera paint. I used a plain, light-weight plate. They were quite flimsy and you could actually flatten them out.
2. When the paint is dry, cut one of the smaller plates in half (these will be the wings) and staple or glue them to the largest plate (the body).
3. Cut a strip of brown construction paper for the neck and glue one end to the body and the other to the head (the second small plate).
4. Now for the fun part — the legs.  Cut 2 long strips of orange construction paper each 2″ wide. Our school has 12 by 18″ paper, but if yours doesn’t then you can buy it here.
5. Fold the legs accordion-style and glue onto the body. I think the long legs really give these turkeys their character.
6. For first grade you’re probably going to have to make some tracers for the rest of the turkey features. You’ll need two circles for the eyes, a web shape for the feet, and a diamond shape for the beak.
7. As you can see in the picture below the larger circle will be for the eyeballs and the smaller black circles for the pupils.
8. The kids can probably draw and cut out their own gobblers (or snoods), but you may also want to make a tracer for these, too.
9. When all the pieces are traced, cut and assembled the final step is to make some signs. We used orange construction paper and craft sticks. These turkeys do NOT want to be eaten, so all their signs say “Eat chicken” or “tuna” or “chocolate cake” or “ice-cream”. You get the idea.

Turkey Pie Graph

1. I made a gigantic turkey for my bulletin board. I used 12 by 18″ construction paper for the feathers and bulletin board paper for the head and body. The middle is the pie graph.
2. My pie graph is a large, white, wobbly circle with little turkeys glued all around the inside edge (see below for more details). Each little turkey is holding a sign that says either “yes” or “no” in answer to the survey question: “Do you like to eat turkey?“
3. I glued all the nos together and all the yeses together.
4. Then I coloured red to show how many yeses and yellow to show how many nos.
5. After that was all put on the board the class and I discussed our data. I wrote out our findings and posted them under the turkey.

Each child received one of the little turkeys below. They printed “yes” or “no” in answer to the survey question and then coloured in the turkey however they wished.

When they finished cutting out the circles I glued them to the pie graph as shown above.

I have a free download of these little turkeys for you. They’re each 3″ in diameter. If that’s a little big or a bit small for your graph, then of course they can be easily re-sized on your photocopier.

DOWNLOAD: Turkey with a Sign

 

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