Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Turkey "Feast"...2nd grade style

Yesterday, I had the privilege of joining Alyssa's class for some Thanksgiving festivities. Mrs. VanDiest, Alyssa's teacher, had some amazing activities planned for the kids to participate in. There were five different stations for each child to participate in.

The girls made pilgrim hats and the boys made Indian headpieces. The boys were suppose to have their choice of pilgrim hats or the Indian headpieces but the pilgrim hats for the boys didn't copy right. :( I couldn't get Alyssa to put her pilgrim hat on for anything. (She is not much of a hat fan...actually it's more hats that tie under her chin. She hates birthday hats because of the elastic.)

Each student was asked to bring a sock. They used their socks to make turkey puppets.
Another station was where the kids made cornbread and then they had a jar of cream to carry around with them the rest of the morning. They were to shake this cream until they made butter. We had some very sore arms and the moms did a lot of the shaking for them.
At my station, the kids made Turkey Soup. We made this recipe 5 different times. (There were 5 groups of students...you'd think I had this soup recipe memorized by the time I left. Sadly, I did not.)

The students measured the ingredients and cut potatoes, carrots and celery. As much as I love boys...some of them should not be allowed in the "kitchen"! They were scaring myself and the grandmother that I was working with. They would use the knife as if it were an axe...raising it straight up in the air and coming down with much force. Yes, they were instructed before getting the knife how they were to use it and we even demonstrated the proper way to cut the vegetables. That obviously meant nothing to them. Never fear, we took the knife away immediately when they were caught using the knife inappropriately and passed it on to someone who could be more cautious! Thankfully nobody was hurt.
At the last station, the kids got to make turkey cookies. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a good shot of Alyssa at that station...I was busy supervising children with knives! The cookies turned out soooooo cute!!

We sent the kids to recess so that we could get some clean up taken care and got everything ready for the rest of the morning.

Each reading group performed for the class. While most of them read different short poems about the pilgrims and Thanksgiving, Alyssa's reading group actually read a story to the class. These 5 kids are amazing readers. I realize one of them is mine and it may sound like I'm bragging a little bit but we are very proud of Alyssa and her reading skills. I have the privilege of working with this particular group every Tuesday. They are a joy to sit and listen to as they read their chapter books.

The story that the group read was "Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving". It was such a fun story and the class loved it. They had us all laughing by the end.
After each group performed, Mrs. VanDiest had some really cute songs for them to sing. For the first one, they used their sock puppets.
Finally, the soup was ready and we could have our "feast". I was sad that I wasn't able to stay for the remainder of the time. (I had to get Ethan to Preschool and then I had to go to work.) However, before I left, I did get a few pictures!

I was shocked that Alyssa ate her soup...she's usually not much of a soup girl. The kids really didn't have any choice because they weren't getting anything else for lunch (nobody brought a lunch from home) and since we had switched their eating time with their lunch recess...they were hungry!
After school, the girls had some fun and made Ethan a headpiece for him to wear. We called him our "Little Squanto". Isn't he a cute little Indian boy?!

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