Thanksgiving lesson plan

“Happy Thanksgiving!”

Special lesson Level 1 Age 3-5

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Special lesson

Thanksgiving

In this lesson, students are introduced to some common Thanksgiving vocabulary, learn a Thanksgiving song, make a Thanksgiving decoration and play lots of fun Thanksgiving games.

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Age: 3-5 years
Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Have fun with Thanksgiving themes.
Structures: “Happy Thanksgiving”, “What is it?”.
New vocabulary: Thanksgiving, turkey, gobble, wobble, cold/colder, warm/warmer, hot.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

Thanksgiving flashcards: turkey

Printables:

[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the turkey worksheet

Songs:

Hello song
Goodbye song
The Thanksgiving song

Supplies:

name tags for each student
a glove puppet
[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] crayons / pencils
masking tape
brown, yellow and orange construction paper / card
glue and scissors
cushions (1 per student)
device to play the songs on

Notes:

This lesson does not focus on the history of the American Thanksgiving festival or the purpose of Thanksgiving as it would be too complex for younger learners and in many cases has little relevance within their own culture. Instead, it introduces students to some fun Thanksgiving-related games and activities, as well as a Thanksgiving song!

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

1. Greetings
Greet each student by name as they enter the classroom and say, “Happy Thanksgiving!” – try to get them to say this back to you. Gesture for them to sit down (on cushions if you have them) in a fan-shape around you.

2. Name tags
Before class, prepare some blank name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) and some cards, each with a student’s name written on clearly – students will use them to copy their names onto their name tags. Sit down with your students and lay out the name cards in front of you. Pick up each card and encourage the student to recognize his/her name. Do this for everyone.

Finally, have everyone take out a crayon or pencil and copy their name on their tags and stick them on.

Introduce glove puppet - greetings and introductions activity

3. Glove puppet greetings
Bring out your glove puppet bag and have everyone shout “Hello!“ into the bag until he wakes up and jumps out of the bag. Then model talking to the glove puppet …

Teacher: “Hello”, What’s your name?”
Puppet: “My name is…”.
Puppet: “How are you?”
Teacher: “I’m fine, thank you”.

… and then have the puppet say hello to each student and ask them the same questions. Then have the puppet ask any other questions practiced in previous lessons. Finally, go around saying “Goodbye” and “See you” before going back into the bag and back to sleep.

4. Sing the “Hello song”
Sit in a circle and sing the song (clap along or pat knees).

Lyrics for the “Hello song”

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Gestures for the “Hello song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Hello, hello” parts.
Gesture to others as you sing, “How are you today?”
Point to yourself as you sing, “I’m fine, thank you”
Hand gesture towards another student as you sing, “And how about you?”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_us]

5. Homework check
Check each student’s homework that you set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “What’s this?”, etc.), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a smiley face).

Finally, tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.

6. Do “Exercise routine” activity
Say the following and have the students follow your lead:

“Stand up” (Teacher stands and so does everyone else)
“Hands up / hands down” (do 4 or 5 times)
“Jump” (4 or 5 times)
“Kick” (4 or 5 times)
“Run! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Turn around! / Stop!” (4 or 5 times)
“Wiggle” (a few seconds)
finally “Sit down”.

New learning and practice:

1. Introduce the turkey and do the turkey walk
Show a flashcard of a turkey. Elicit / Teach “turkey” and chorus x3. Ask, “What noise does a turkey make?” and teach how to make gobble-gobble, turkey noises. Then ask, “How does a turkey walk?” and then show your best turkey impression – strut around, wobbling and flapping your elbows making “gobble-gobble” sounds.

Get everyone to join in, strutting around the classroom having lots of fun!

2. Sing the “The Thanksgiving song” song
Let’s set our new walks to music! This is a really fun song with lots of gobbling and wobbling! Get everyone up and follow your gestures with the song. Play the song twice – first time to do with you and second time to do without following your actions.

Lyrics for “The Thanksgiving song”

Verse 1:
Hello Mr. Turkey, Hello Mr. Turkey
How are you? How are you?
Hello Mr. Turkey, Hello Mr. Turkey
How are you? How are you?

With a “Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,
gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble”

And a “Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble,
wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble”

Happy, Happy Thanksgiving
Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

Verse 2:
Hello Mr. Turkey, Hello Mr. Turkey
How are you? How are you?
Hello Mr. Turkey, Hello Mr. Turkey
How are you? How are you?

With a “Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble,
gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble”

And a “Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble,
wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble”

With a “Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble”
And a “Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble”

“Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble”
“Wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble”

Happy, Happy, Happy Thanksgiving
Hooray!

Gestures for “The Thanksgiving song”

The actions for this song are simple, fun and energetic – who wouldn’t enjoy running around like a turkey?!

Everyone stands up for the song:

“Hello Mr. Turkey, Hello Mr. Turkey” – everyone sings and waves.
“How are you? How are you? ” – do the question gesture (palms up with inquisitive face).
“With a gobble … And a wobble…” – this is the really fun bit. Everyone runs around like a turkey (crouched over, flapping elbows in a wobbly fashion) while gobbling!
“Happy, Happy Thanksgiving” – stop running around and sing.
“Hip hip hooray! ” – throw arms up in the air in celebration!

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_us]

3. Play “Musical turkeys”
This is a game based on “Musical chairs” but using turkey footprints instead of chairs. Use pieces of masking tape to make turkey footprints all over the floor, like this:

Make sure there are the same number of footprints as the number of students in the class.

Start playing some music – either the Thanksgiving song or any other music. Let the students pretend to be turkeys and strut around the room (gobbling and wobbling). When you stop the music, have the turkeys find a footprint to stand on (one turkey to a footprint).

Now, remove one footprint. When you start the music again, have the turkeys continue strutting around the room and when you stop the music everyone needs to find a footprint to stand on – the one student who can’t find a footprint is out. Remove another footprint and play the music again. Keep playing until there is just one student left.

4. 5-minute play time
This is an optional segment that can be part of all your lessons at this level. Allow your students to play with any games or toys you have. If possible, use large tubs or boxes to hold the toys and bring them out for a few minutes each lesson. Tubs filled with animals, plastic fruit, building blocks, kitchen sets, plastic food, cars & vehicles, Mr. Potato Head dolls and so on.

Thanksgiving Turkey hand & foot decoration

5. Make a “Turkey hand & foot decoration”
Before class, make the turkey decoration for yourself so that students can see what to do. Take out your pre-made turkey craft decoration and ask the class what it is (elicit “turkey”). Ask what shape the body and wings are and try and elicit that they are the shapes of your hands and feet (you can show this by placing your hand over one of the hand cut-outs).

Pair up students and tell them they are going to help each other make the craft:

i) Using brown construction paper, students help each other to draw an outline of their foot. This is then cut out (help younger kids with the cutting).

ii) Now pairs help each other to draw outlines of their hands on yellow and orange construction paper. Again, these need to be cut out.

iii) Finally, get the students to cut out little feet and beaks from the construction paper and glue everything to the body. Eyes can either be drawn on or if you have craft eyes you can stick them on.

6. Play “Hunt the turkey”
Everyone is going to play a fun game using their turkey crafts. Keep the students in pairs for this activity. First demonstrate with a student. Ask the student to close his/her eyes whilst you hide your turkey decoration (e.g. under a book, behind a bag, etc.). Then tell the student to look for your turkey. As the student is looking you can help by giving the following hints:

“cold” – the student is far away from the turkey
“colder” – the student is getting even further away from the turkey
“warm” – the student is near the turkey
“warmer” – the student is getting nearer the turkey
“hot” – the student is very near the turkey

Once the student has found the turkey and everyone understands the game have the student pairs play together. Each time they finish they can change roles. Monitor each pair and help out with the vocabulary (warm, cold, etc.).

Wrap up:

1. Assign homework: “[hide_on_uk]Color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]Colour[/hide_on_us] the turkey” worksheet
Hold up the homework worksheet – this is a fun [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] activity. Ask, “What’s this?” and elicit “Turkey”. Model what to do by choosing a crayon and [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] in part of the turkey, then changing to another crayon for another part.

Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags” and help them to do so – this is important as they will probably want to start working on them right away.

2. Say goodbye to the glove puppet
Take out the bag again and get everyone to wake up the glove puppet by shouting its name into the bag (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Bring out the puppet and go through the same routine – go to each student and say hello, ask their name and the say goodbye / see you. Then put the puppet back in the bag (back to sleep).

3. Sing the “Goodbye song”
Sit together in a circle and sing and clap along.

Lyrics for the “Goodbye song”

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.

It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Gestures for the “Goodbye song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Goodbye, goodbye” parts.
Hold your hand above your eyes (as you would when you are looking into the distance and keeping the sun out of your eyes) and look at another student as you sing, “See you again”.
Tap watch (or imaginary watch) and then point to the door as you sing, “It’s time to go”.
Point towards another student as you sing, “See you next time”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_us]

4. Do “Quick check” and say goodbye
Time to leave the class. Make sure everything is put away and the students have gathered their belongings. Have them line up at the door and place yourself between the door and the students.

As each student goes to the door to leave the classroom ask them to show you how a turkey walks. Good impressions can leave the room, otherwise they go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!