Giving Thanks

Hello!

Today I am excited to share with you three Thanksgiving crafts, all made (mostly) by my pre-Kindergarten class.  As a teacher (and a crafter in general), I really try make meaningful crafts that have equal parts form and function.  The process of making the craft should teach them something and the final product should be something the kids are proud of and want to show off. 

Warning:  In this post, there will not be any pictures of the process of the crafts as a means to protect my funny little kiddos.  Also, the pictures are taken from a camera phone, so the quality might be a little less than usual. 

First, a coffee filter turkey!  The purpose of this activity was to teach all the kiddos about colors and to conduct a mini informal assessment on their knowledge of colors and their ability to predict what will happen when we unfolded the coffee filters. 

Materials:

• Variety of colors of food dye
• Bowls filled with water
• Coffee filter
• Turkey body from brown, orange or yellow construction paper (see template below if you would like a copy)
• Scissors
• Colored pencils
• Two googly eyes
• Elmer’s glue

First, drop several drops of food dye into the bowls of water (we used green, red, yellow and blue).  Then, have the child fold the coffee filter several times (doesn’t really matter how, they can be creative).  Then dip the coffee filters into whatever colors the kids want to use in whatever order they want.  Open up the coffee filter and allow to dry. 

Click on picture, zoom in once
to see full size template.

Meanwhile, give one turkey body to each kid (I pre-cut the turkey bodies from the template…My kiddos are not all experts with scissors yet).  The kids drew on a waddle and a beak, and then we glued on two googly eyes. 

After the coffee filters are completely dry, use Elmer’s glue to glue the coffee filter onto the back of the turkey body. 

Display in the hallway for parents and students to enjoy!

Next, a fingerprint turkey!  This activity was primarily for teaching the names of the different fingers (thumb, index, middle, ring and pinky).

Materials:

• Ink pads
• Paper (White, brown and orange)
• Glue
• Their hands
• Fingerprint poem (see below)

First, press pink into yellow ink, and make one line.  Press ring finger into yellow ink and make one line below the yellow.  Use the middle finger with blue, again press a line below the yellow.  Press the index finger into green and make one line below the blue.  Lastly, red is for the thumb, press one final line and one that stands out for the head and waddle (see picture below!).  Teacher/Parent/Adult draws in eyes, legs, wings and beak. 

I glued the turkey print out on an orange backing.  Print out fingerprint poems, glue them to brown cardboard backing.  Glue poem onto orange backing, below turkeys and done!

Fingerprint poem:

All turkey birds are different,

As you will shortly see

And you will never see another bird

Quite like this one to you from me.

Can you see what makes it different? 

Do you need some helpful hints?

I made a turkey from my very own...

FINGERPRINTS!!

 

Lastly, a handprint turkey.  We did this project to support team work.  On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we are going to raffle the turkey off to one lucky winner!

Materials:

• White paper
• Yellow, orange and red paint (finger or tempera…doesn’t really matter as long as it is washable)
• Their hands
• Scissors
• Turkey body cut out on brown construction paper (see above)
• Colored pencils
• Tape

Each student made two or more handprints (this was very supervised and they took turns to avoid inevitable messes).  Hang the paper up to dry. 

Students cut out their own handprints (unless their motor skills aren’t quite up to par yet…I let my kiddos cut them out, then helped refine their edges).  Teacher/Parent/Adult assembles turkey body (draw on eyes, beak and waddle), then tapes together all handprints on turkey body.  Place on bulletin board underneath student’s “giving tree” with the things they are thankful for (see pictures below…My personal favorite was “I am thankful for…Velociraptors.”)

 

Happy Thanksgiving.



Blueberry Hydrangea

In honour of our launch date and my first post, I would like to introduce the Blueberry Hydrangea, a dessert that I had concocted just this afternoon for our family's Thanksgiving Dinner. You'll probably see a holiday discrepancy later on, as American Thanksgiving takes place in November (if I remember correctly). The name of the dessert, Blueberry Hydrangea stems from the fact that it looks like well, the Hydrangea, pictured here:

Pastry:

1 cup butter

2 cups flour

1 tbsp sugar

1tsp salt

2/3 cups cold water

For this dessert, I started with a pastry dough. After adding and mixing the dry ingredients together, I cut in the butter until it was all crumbly and then added the water to form the dough.

After the dough ball has been formed, roll it out on a flat, floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Just a warning, this pastry is quite flaky and therefore a bit of a pain to work with. However, it

is very delicious and once you get past the crumbly, flaky, sticky mess and finally get a nice flat sheet of pastry, you will be glad you stuck it out. I would roll the dough to a thickness of quarter 1/4". Then cut it into squares.

As you can see, I used a pizza cutter. This is because it made my lines cleaner and the cutting easier.

After you get a square, pop it into a very small, shallow muffin tin with the corners poking up. Your first hydrangea! This batch make enough for 24 small cups. Pop them in the fridge while you preheat the oven to 375 degrees and start the filling. Bake the shells for 20 minutes or until golden brown, like so. Even the bottoms of the pastry should be a little browned!

Now for the filling, pictured on the right.

1 tbsp butter

3 cups frozen blueberries

3 tbsp sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp cream cheese

2 tbsp flour

In a saucepan, heat butter on high heat until melted. Throw in berries, sugar, lemon juice and cream cheese. You can lower the heat a little here. Once the berries have thawed and heated up, you'll notice a gorgeous juice bubbling. You can add the flour here to thicken it up.

And once the shells have cooled, gently (and I mean very gently) spoon the filling in and garnish with a tiny mint leaf. Tada! Serve with whipped cream (trust me on this one!).

That concludes the inaugural post.. stay tuned!