Thanksgiving fun has started

Well, we are gearing up for thanksgiving.  We have been talking about the meaning of thanksgiving and when I asked my niece what Thanksgiving is all about she said, "God gives us toys and food."  So I guess she grasped part of it.  I am having a hard time explaining to four year olds what being Thankful really means.  They get that they are supposed to say thank you for things but I don't think they really understand what that means.  Oh and we made paper bad "chickens"  I mean turkeys.  The kids kept calling them chickens and they don't really get why turkeys go with thanksgiving either!  :)

Here's the project.  We traced their hands and cut them out of colored construction paper. We stapled them to the bottom of a lunch sized brown bag that they decorated.  I cut out turkey heads out of paper for them to color.  They stuffed the bags with pages of an old phone book crumpled up and I stapled the end and stapled on the head.  They loved them, except my tiny little guy who was afraid of the finished product.  We had to hold it in front of him for the picture because it was too crinkly for him.  :)

I also made a couple of turkey folder games from my favorite site and I will post a link.   I made the color matching turkey one for my niece and the turkey feathers addition and subtraction game for my little girl and the harvest patterns for them to share.  Here is a link to that site.  http://www.filefolderfun.com/SubjectThanksgiving2.html

I also made one where you match the number of dots on a turkey feather to the number on the turkey.  I got that one out of a book that I copied and colored but it would be easy to hand draw and make.  My niece did really well with that one.  It is good for preschoolers working on number recognition.

I just love holidays, they work so well with themed activities and the kids just love them!  Even my eldest got really into drawing his thanksgiving dinner today with some unconventional choices like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lol.