Yippee Skippee and Gobble Gobble

Yippee! Report cards are finished! I'm not even going to worry about the piles of assessments, checklists and writing samples that have taken over my dining room table 'cause I'm too busy doing the happy dance. Inputting the last grade each marking period always bring such a sigh of relief. Ahhh...

This time around was especially stressful because of an unexpected time crunch. We usually spend the last two weeks before report cards are due giving all of our assessments. We lost 6 of these days when school was closed because of Superstorm Sandy however, leaving us with a lot to get done in a very little time. So, I confess, I did something that I hate to do - I gave the kids a lot of seat work to keep them working independently while I pulled kids to assess. It was meaningful work and it kept the kids engaged, but I still felt a little guilty about it.  Sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do, I guess.

I thought that some of you might be under the same time crunch or might just be looking to get the kids through this crazy week until Thanksgiving, so I thought I would share some of the things that I used.  The first is a cute little book that the kids can use to write about their ideal Thanksgiving dinner. It starts with the prompt, "This year I'm cooking Thanksgiving dinner and I'm making..."  The kids then write one thing on each page that they would make if they were cooking. It's pretty funny to see what they come up with - lots of Junk Food Feasts, that's for sure! I just photocopied a big pile of the food pages and let the kids write as many pages as they wanted to. If you want to see what menus your little chefs will come up with, you can grab a copy below the picture.

Grab a Copy

Next is a packet full of random Thanksgiving goodies. There's a tens frame counting activity, a First Thanksgiving story sequencing activity, a math patterning worksheet and two labeling pages. There's enough to keep your kiddos busy learning in a meaningful way for awhile.

Click Here to Download

I hope you have a quick and easy week as we head into the long Thanksgiving weekend! Have a great night!