You’d be surprised how much learning takes place when you create a Thanksgiving turkey bulletin board for your kindergarten classroom.  But it does! Here’s a little sneak peek at how my class did ours and a free banner to get you started.

THE TURKEY

So when I was planning these turkeys in my head, it was my intention to use this activity to reinforce shapes that we need to learn in kindergarten by making the bodies by using triangles, circles, rectangles, squares and even hexagons.  We did a similar thing with our Pumpkin Patch bulletin board (you can check that one out HERE), and my students loved it.  I heard lots of great shape conversations.  ‘You have a triangle. . . my turkey is a hexagon.’  It definitely reinforced the fact that those shapes were getting recognized.

But even more valuable, was the opportunity for my friends to CUT.  I do my best to get them cutting many times in a given week.  There just isn’t any substitute for honing those fine motor skills.  The thing that surprised me is how far their cutting has come since we did the pumpkin bulletin board the month before.  Those daily cutting opportunities and those Fine Motor Morning Work Stations have been doing their job.  My kinder friends are getting stronger.

Even the detail pieces like the eyes and beaks were looking like . . . well . . . like eyes and beaks.  It was kind of great to see.

To create the bodies, I just took several different fall shades of construction paper (I’m an Astrobrights fan so that’s what I used!) and drew several different copies of the different shapes. There isn’t any fancy template for you to purchase from me, unfortunately.  You’ll just have to go ahead and do your best to make some shapes on your own.  Then I also freehand drew round eyes and a beak for them to cut out.  You can make the eyes in different shapes if you prefer.  That’s what I did with our pumpkins and my students thought they were hilarious.  I forgot to do it on these turkeys.

Then you’ll want to create a feather template so you can trace four feathers in different colors for each turkey as well.

When I have my students do these kinds of projects, it’s really one step at a time.  First, we cut the body, then everyone comes back to the carpet and I demonstrate the next step.  Then they come back to the carpet, and I demonstrate the step that comes after that one and so on and so on.  This is the way that big projects work best for me.  Small simple steps that we can do together and then come back to regroup for the next step keep everyone on track and no one gets overwhelmed by too many details at one time.

THE BANNER

Once the birds are done, it’s just a matter of printing off the bulletin board letters. You’ll need to select three pieces each of four different shades of paper.  I’ve labeled the bottom of each banner page with ‘color 1, color 2,  . . . and so on so you’ll know which colors go where. Then once they are printed and cut apart,  I just use a simple piece of twine that I hang from the ceiling using ceiling hooks and miniature clothespins.  Easy Peasy!  The results are too cute turkeys for your board.

I love them because they are all so unique and just so fun!

If you’d like to make your own turkey bulletin board, just complete the form below.  You will be sent an email confirming your subscription to my newsletter.  When you confirm that, the document will automatically be downloaded to your computer.

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