Surviving November

Did you Survive October? We had the most wonderful Halloween week ever thanks to a little early planning that ended up being easier than I could have imagined! You can check out my planning post HERE and see the plans I used for the week of Halloween. I ended up with TOO MANY plans so I didn't get to everything I wanted to but too much is WAY BETTER than not enough when it comes to kindergarten!

Because my Surviving Halloween plans were so successful I decided to keep it going and create this Surviving November lesson plan. I have included things for Veteran's Day, All About Pilgrims, and Thanksgiving activities. I started writing in when I will do all of these fun things and it is really filling in some gaps in my month. I'm excited about that!

Here are a few highlights from this unit:
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All About Veteran's Day- We start with plans to teach before the Veteran's Day holiday. It includes book links and ideas to teach what a veteran is, writing pages to write letters to a veteran, and a letter home to get a list of people in our families that have served in the armed forces. It is always more meaningful when students have a connection to what you are teaching! I also included this fun apple stamping poppy activity for a fun art connection too. These are going to be beautiful in our hallway!

All About Pilgrims- The subject of pilgrims, Native Americans, and the whole Thanksgiving discussion can be a sensitive subject but I am a firm believer that this is kindergarten and I am a bit of a traditionalist. So yes we are making pilgrim bonnets and corn husk dolls and yes I understand that the whole idea of the first Thanksgiving can be controversial. That being said, here are a few fun ideas from this part of the unit.

 Have you ever made the little bonnets for Thanksgiving? They are super easy. Literally two cuts and a couple of folds. And I learned that the traditional hats the men wore didn't include buckles (although yes...I included it) because the pilgrims that traveled over were very poor and couldn't afford buckles (not even for their pants....they used pieces of leather). AND they didn't wear black and white, most of their clothes everyday clothes were pretty colorful. The black and white traditional dress we see were probably more what they wore to church.

I included a long list of books I like to read during this unit too. Adding in your own insights during these reads is an important way to steer clear of those stereotypes.

This is one of my favorite activities I learned from my mentor years ago when I started teaching kindergarten. These little corn husk dolls are surprisingly easy to make and spark a great conversation about toys and what pilgrim children may have played with. We use them as part of our "Then and Now" activities  and they actually go really well with our Reading Street story for the week George Washington Visits.

Turkey Fun! The rest of the unit is just a bunch of Thanksgiving themed turkey fun.  A lot of the lessons go with a book but some are just traditional, kindergarten friendly, Thanksgiving activities. Here is a sneak peek.

 Fine Motor Math centers: Roll a dice, add a pony bead to the turkey. This can be an individual activity or a partner activity.

 I paired these cute toilet paper roll/handprint turkey crafts with the book 10 Fat Turkeys by Tony Johnston. Make the turkeys and then do the read aloud. Students act out the book holding their cute little fat turkey. It's an adorable book if you haven't read it!

This craft is ADORABLE hanging in the hallway with the cute little swirly turkey legs.

Another Fine Motor activity. I am really excited about adding this to our fine motor bins. The students cut the feathers up to the spine part without cutting all the way through. It is excellent cutting practice and they end up with a real looking feather.

Some of the other lessons include activities to go with the following books:


Sounds like fun right? I can't wait to implement these into our lesson plans. We will do the Veteran's day stuff at the end of next week and the Thanksgiving day plans will be the Monday and Tuesday before we break for Thanksgiving. Those are always "flex" days as I like to call them because you can't really teach your regular curriculum in such a short week. Why not do something fun (and memorable) that will keep them coming back for more?

Want to pin this for later? Here you go!