Favorite Thanksgiving Read Alouds

Are you searching for new and engaging Thanksgiving-themed books to enjoy throughout the month of November? There are so many choices that you could read a Thanksgiving book or two every single day of the month! Imagine filling your classroom library with an array of incredible Thanksgiving read-alouds, perfect for engaging your students. To help you get started, I've picked my top ten read-aloud Thanksgiving books, all of which lead to Amazon affiliate links. 

A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael J. Rosen

Reasons I love this book: The book beautifully illustrates the importance of family, community, and gratitude, while encouraging students to reflect on their own wishes for the holiday.

Synopsis: This heartwarming story follows Amanda as she tries to make her own Thanksgiving wishes come true as she celebrates her first Thanksgiving without her beloved Bubbe.

A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting

Reasons I love this book: This charming tale explores friendship, compassion, and the true meaning of Thanksgiving. It allows students to use their predicting skills, while the adorable illustrations and suspenseful plot will keep them engaged from beginning to end.

Synopsis: Mrs. Moose invites her friends to Thanksgiving dinner, but there's one problem—they can't find a turkey!

Peyton Picks the Perfect Pie by Jack Bishop

Reasons I love this book: Your students will learn about diversity, family traditions, and the joy of sharing. This book is an excellent way to explore the importance of individuality and inclusion.

Synopsis: In this delightful story, Peyton a young, biracial girl who is a picky eater, embarks on a quest to find the perfect pie for Thanksgiving.

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano

Reasons I love this book: This hilarious and clever book teaches students about problem-solving, empathy, and the power of creative thinking. Prepare for lots of laughter and a surprising twist at the end!

Synopsis: Turkey is in trouble! Determined not to become Thanksgiving dinner, he disguises himself as other animals on the farm.

Thank You, Omu! by Oge Mora

Reasons I love this book: This heartwarming story emphasizes the spirit of generosity, community, and gratitude. The captivating illustrations and vibrant colors make this book engaging for young readers.

Synopsis: Omu is cooking a delicious stew for dinner when the enticing aroma attracts the attention of the entire community.

The Great Thanksgiving Escape by Mark Fearing

Reasons I love this book: Through humor and relatable characters, this book explores family dynamics and the importance of togetherness.

Synopsis: Gavin and his cousin Rhonda are determined to escape the dreaded annual Thanksgiving family gathering. This fun-filled adventure will have your students on the edge of their seats, as they witness the duo's comical attempts to outwit their relatives.

Not This Turkey! by Jessica Steinberg

Reasons I love this book: This book takes your students on a hilarious adventure while exploring themes of self-acceptance, friendship, and celebrating our differences.

Synopsis: Mel and his family are Jewish immigrants and have never celebrated Thanksgiving. His family begins new holiday traditions after his father wins a Thanksgiving raffle and ends up bringing a live turkey home on the New York subway. 

Thanksgiving in the Woods by Phyllis Alsdurf

Reasons I love this book: This story beautifully portrays the essence of community, nature, and the value of coming together. 

Synopsis: Based on a true story, this book follows a family's annual Thanksgiving tradition of celebrating in the woods with their friends and neighbors.

The Best Thanksgiving Ever! by Teddy Slater

Reasons I love this book: This lovely story illustrates the importance of family, being thankful and most importantly love.

Synopsis: This book tells a story of a family of turkeys getting ready for Thanksgiving. The story is relatable as it describes how they get ready to celebrate the holiday from cleaning the house to the craziness of their extended family's arrival.

Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson

Reasons I love this book: This heartwarming story explores the importance of gratitude, generosity, and the joy of friendship.

Synopsis: Bear is lonely and wants to invite his friends over for a meal, but realizes he has nothing to give them. His friends surprise him in a beautiful way with their generosity.

These ten Thanksgiving read aloud books are sure to captivate and engage your young students. Through these stories, your students will learn about gratitude, friendship, problem-solving, diversity, and the joy of giving. So gather your students around, open up these books, and let the Thanksgiving magic begin!

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Turkey Apples and Thanksgiving Freebie

Oh my goodness! I can't believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner. I wanted to share two fun projects with you. The first is an oldie but goody from my childhood- TURKEY APPLES! My mom used to make these for my class when I was a kid. I also remember making these as a "how to" project when I was in third grade. I brought all the ingredients to school, so each kid could make their own turkey apple as I explained the process step by step. So now, I am going to share it with all of you. Here is what you need for each apple:

One apple, 5 toothpicks, a candy corn, 2 raisins, a candy orange slice, mini marshmallows and orange icing.

1. Place candy orange slice on one toothpick so toothpick does not poke through the top. 

2. Put a dab of frosting on top of the candy slice and adhere candy corn.

3. Put a dab of frosting on each side of the orange candy slice and place a raisin on each to make the eyes.

4. Push tooth pick into one top side of the apple. (see pic)

5. Put 4 marshmallows on 4 toothpicks to make the feathers of the turkey.

6. Push each toothpick into the apple on the opposite side of the turkey head.

7. Enjoy!

Turkey Apple

I am in the process of making 30 of these for my son's kindergarten class for their Thanksgiving feast this week. My son has been a great help, peeling off all the apple stickers and "tasting" all the ingredients!

If you would like to turn this into a "How To" lesson with your students, I have provided a template to use. You can down load it HERE: 

Fonts from Jen Jones and Graphics from KPM Doodles

The next freebie is a follow up activity after a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.

After I read this book to my class, we made a class book called "Save the Turkeys." Each student wrote one or two things they would eat instead of turkey on Thanksgiving. Here are a couple samples:

pizza

soup with vegetables

You can grab your FREEBIE copy of this class book HERE. I hope you can find a moment to fit this into your busy week and enjoy the story with your students. If you decide to download the copy, I would love for you to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Have a great evening!

Thanksgiving Performance, Books and a Giveaway

I am having a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea that there are only 4 more school days until we are off for a week for Thanksgiving. I feel like we just got into the swing of Thanksgiving activities and POOF they are going to be over. This week we are gearing up for our big elementary fall feast and performance on Friday. It is a tradition at my school for the elementary students to perform a dance and/or sing a song for all the parents and then it is followed by our traditional feast. This year my kiddos are singing a Turkey Named Bert (LOVE this song) and dancing the Virginia Reel. They have been practicing for weeks and have come so far since we first started. I am so proud of them. After our performance the parents set up for our elementary feast. Each grade level brings in different items to contribute to the feast-main dishes, side dishes, desserts, drinks etc. It is a wonderful community event that brings everyone together. It helps get the holiday season started in the right direction. I will post pictures of all these activities at the end of the week.

I wanted to share some of my favorite Thanksgiving books with you. I am going to try and fit in as many of these stories as possible next week. This is my favorite:

A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael Rosen. It is about a little girl who is worried that Thanksgiving will never be the same since her grandmother just passed. The book explains how the power of tradition brings comfort and peace to her family. It is a beautifully written story that hits home with me every year when I read it.

10 Fat Turkeys by Tony Johnston is silly book about 10 crazy turkeys and it helps kids with counting backwards.

The Littlest Pilgrim by Brandi Dougherty is a sweet story to read about friendship and kindness.

What are some of your favorite Thanksgiving stories? Please leave a comment and let me know. I love adding new books to my classroom collection.

Also, hop on over to my friend Rebecca's blog at Classroom Compulsions. She is having a Fall Giveaway with TONS of amazing items from several bloggers. There is something for everybody at every grade level. If you enter, you may even get something from my little store to use for Thanksgiving in your classroom. 

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Pilgrim Craftivity Freebie

I love Thanksgiving and I love a great freebie! Yesterday, Nancy at First Grade WOW posted the most adorable freebie for Thanksgiving. Nancy is so incredibly generous and has the cutest ideas! My kiddos loved making these Pilgrims and writing what they are thankful for in life.

Boy and Girl Pilgrims

It was heartwarming to read what all the kids were thankful for.

I just can't get enough of these cute little guys. Don't you just want to eat them up? They are the PERFECT addition to all our Thanksgiving activities in our classroom. I made a pattern for the buckle on the pilgrim hat. You can grab it HERE.

Nancy as been sweet enough to provide everything else you need to make these adorable Pilgrims. Check out her blog and download this amazing freebie today! Your kids will be so thankful you did.

Tom D.Turkey and In A Nutshell FREEBIE

I am still in shock that it is already November! I spent yesterday afternoon taking down many of my October and Halloween activities in my classroom, so I could get the room ready for Thanksgiving. I just realized there are only 9 (yes, count them-9) days of school before we have a week off for Thanksgiving break. That is a short time to get a lot of November love covered in my class.

Yesterday we wrote narrative stories about Tom D. Turkey.

Before we started, we brainstormed adjectives and verbs to describe Tom. We created this chart to use during the writing time.

Then each student created their own Tom Turkey.

If you think your students would love this activity too, it is included in my Gobblin' Up Thanksgiving Fun Literacy Center unit.

We have also been working on mental math addition strategies this last week. I am a visual learner, so I really have a hard time teaching this concept the way it is delivered in our math series. It is very abstract. I decided to create a hands-on visual for the kids. All in hopes that it will help them grasp the concept easier. These activities grabbed my kids attention- hook, line and sinker.

Each student made an acorn and wrote their own 2 digit addition problem on the "shell" of the acorn. Then on the "nut" they showed the steps to add the problem using mental math. They added the tens, then the ones. Then they add the sums of the tens and ones together to find the original sum.

 

I used the acorns to frame my math focus wall.

We are going to continue our practice of mental math addition with these activities:

If you would like your FREEBIE copy of my In A Nutshell activities, just click on the title and it will take you to my TpT store where you can grab it! All I ask is that you leave a comment and/or follow my sweet blog or TpT store. I hope your students love learning about mental math with these activities. 

Literacy Centers,FREEBIE and a Giveaway-Oh, My!

I have been fighting a cold for the last few days and when I came home on Friday, I was ready to collapse. However, when I opened my mailbox a burst of delight ran through my body because I found my first TpT check in the mail! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think when I started my blog  5 months ago that I would reach this milestone. Thank you to each and everyone of you for all for support and inspiration!

As many of you know, my team partner and I have started an intensive intervention program with our reading program Treasures. You can read about the details of the intervention HERE. I will be doing enrichment and review with those students who are at grade level in language arts. So last week I created Gobblin' Up Thanksgiving Fun-8 Thanksgiving themed literacy centers and a writing craftivity to use with them during our intervention time. Here are all the literacy centers laminated and ready to be cut out for the kids to use in the next couple weeks.

The centers include: Making Words, ABC order, fixing sentences, contractions, compound words, proper and common nouns, plural nouns and parts of speech. 

We are going to start the week off my making these cute little guys and writing a descriptive story about them:

Here is a copy of the writing paper you can grab as a FREEBIE if you like. I hope it helps get your kids ready for Turkey Time!

Also, my fellow blogging friend Corinna at Oh "FISH" ally a First Grader is having a mega giveaway to celebrate reaching 100 followers. She has over 58 products she is giving away from an incredible group of bloggers. There is something for everyone Pre-K through Middle school. Head on over to enter and you might even winning something from my little store!

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend and have an amazing week ahead!