Adorable Turkey Hats & Positional Words!

Woot! I'm on Thanksgiving Break for 5 days! Now, I love my pre-k kiddos - they are the 20 most adorable, funny AND fun children and I enjoy every day spent with them, but I am REALLY looking forward to spending time with my own 5 children!

First though, I have to share some major goodness with you:

We made Turkey hats from paper plates (I saw this pin and just winged it). I was able to make this a math assessment as well since the children painted their feathers in a pattern. I'm happy to say that ALL of them were able to sustain a pattern for the whole plate - some created an AB pattern, but I had a couple of over achievers who went for the ABCD pattern and rocked it :)

In the interest of time, I gave them pre-cut pieces for everything but the head - I figured they needed a bit of circle cutting practice. I considered going with googly eyes, but figured they'd have more personality if I gave the children black markers:)

Here's a picture taken at the end of the day - as you can see quite a few kiddos left early yesterday! The hats were adorable and the kids loved them. They even wore them while working:

We created our "Where Is Turkey" reader yesterday. I ended up laminating the turkey pieces to make them extra durable and the kids were sooo excited! I have 2 home laminators - one is actually at home and the other is in my classroom for those emergency laminating jobs like this. Our school laminator is out of lamination and has been since about the 2nd week of school. We won't be getting any more until next August, so my home laminators come in handy and its nice that I can help out Sam's Club with my lamination purchases  ;P

This is a positional word book, so when the students "read" each page they get to place Turkey in the correct position. Huge hit and I'm already planning a gingerbread version!

In the afternoon we headed down the hall to the 4th grade class, wearing our turkey hats, and sang  "5 Little Turkeys" from The Learning Station. My class is the cutest bunch of singers - they really ham it up and perform, so I try to make sure we get a chance to do a little something each week. I usually just use my cell phone to play the song, but, even when I turn it up as loud as possible, its hard to hear. I also use my phone in the hallway a lot - during bathroom breaks or when there are unexpected delays in the breakfast or lunch line. Expecting 4 and 5 year olds to stand quietly for more than a couple of minutes is just asking for trouble, so I pull up a song or video on my phone and keep them entertained and learning. Again though, it's usually hard for everyone to hear properly.

Imagine how excited I was when our music teacher showed me this:

It's an HMDX Wireless Speaker! I just set my phone to the bluetooth setting and it automatically picked it up. It had a clear sound and it gets plenty loud enough for using in the hallway or the classroom or even for performances at our assemblies! It works up to 30 feet away and has a 4 hour rechargeable battery life! I am in LOVE! It's only $19, so it's one of those little purchases that I can justify because it will make my life so much easier - I'd much prefer my kiddos be learning and singing while waiting in line than have to harp on them to keep still and not touch the person in front of them etc. (Just so you know, if we get stuck behind certain classes in the breakfast or lunch line it is a GUARANTEED ten minute wait! I'm not sure HOW they manage to stretch it out that long, but for some reason certain classes take 3 times as long to get their trays than other classes. Ten idle minutes is a lifetime for pre-k kids!)

Alright, I have to go put my turkey in the brining solution (my husband wanted to fry our turkey this year and since I don't want my house burning down I convinced him to try brining the turkey instead) And yes, I'm aware that frying a turkey can be done safely and easily, but  most likely not with my husband present (as much as I love him I have to be honest!) Please cross your fingers that it turns out well, then we can set the yearly turkey frying argument to rest once and for all :P

I'll leave you with this: the cutest Thanksgiving outfit ever! Why don't they make these for adults?!