Wild About Second Grade: Turkey Time!

Well it's turkey time! In second grade, that means it's time for lots of fun projects and learning activities with our unit on life long ago. It's also a time for us to think about what we are truly thankful for! This year is off to a fantastic start. I am thankful every day for the blessing of these adorable children and for all of the support from each of you!

We've been reading the chapter book, Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The students also enjoyed the pilot episode movie for the old TV series. These are great stories that tie into our theme and upcoming field trip to the Troy Historical Museum. There is an entire series by this author. You may enjoy checking out the next one from the library to read together at home.

The students completed many graphic organizers and writing pieces on the topic of Thanksgiving. We also did some creative writing and learned about the parts of a friendly letter with our Dear Tom Turkey letters. These will be on display at conferences.

This cute project is our November bulletin board display:

The students were asked to write about three embarrassing moments when they felt like a turkey!

I have to say that these were just so much fun to read! I had to hold back the giggles. :)

A special thanks goes out to all of the families who sent in items for our corn soup feast! Here are the students with "Ma" Palma imagining to cook over the hearth.

The kids actually loved the soup and gobbled it all up. They were begging for the recipe to make it at home. Here it is!

Corn Soup

1 pound browned ground sirloin

torn spinach leaves

2 large cans of chicken broth

onion

1 cup of long grain wild rice

2 cans of corn

salt and pepper to taste

All of our ingredients were sent in cooked, so we just added it to the kettle to warm. Our little pilgrim children even set the table!

We also churned our own creamy butter, using heavy whipping cream and a dash of salt, for Miss Mary's famous cornbread muffins! Thanks for baking for us mom! :) Miss Mary has been helping me serve up Thanksgiving feasts for many years now. She agreed this group of kids enjoyed it the most! They were all so polite. You would be proud!

After our mini-feast, we worked on our turkey casserole rice bag project. I hope you will enjoy the recipe, the funny poem on the back and discover a new way to be creative with the leftovers!

Earlier in the month, we did a whole unit on scarecrows. Here is a cute craft and acrostic poem that is on our other bulletin board!

It was a great November!

There is so much to look forward to next month! My head is spinning with thoughts of glitter and paper scraps everywhere but it's all worth it in the name of good Christmas crafting fun! Here's a sneak peek at our sparkled up Santa letters that we mailed to the North Pole! Santa should have them in plenty of time to be sure to add all of our little children to his "nice" list!