Happy Thanksgiving!

In our district we have very strict rules about food and cooking in the classroom.  If we want to cook or consume anything in the classroom I have to send home permission slips, clear it with the nurse and with the principal.  Anyone else's district that way?  It definitely makes holidays a little more drab.  With that said, the only feast these kiddos get is the school lunch feast.  So, we celebrate the holiday in other ways.  I shared earlier last week our I am Thankful pumpkins.  We also made these adorable handprint Mayflowers today.  Here is one in progress:

Here is the sample/finished product:

 
I love making handprint crafts.  As a parent, I love receiving them from my daughter as it marks a time and size in her life.  I also love seeing the Kinders reactions to having their hands painted.  Some love it, some are ticklish and some do not like it at all!  As you can see these are very simple to make.  All you need is light blue construction paper, brown paint, blue crayons and some sails cut out of white paper.  The process is easy!  Paint the Kinders hands and then let dry. Once dry they can glue on the sails and color in the ocean!

Happy Thanksgiving!

What Are You Thankful For?

November is a month to reflect on what we are truly thankful for.  I center my Thanksgiving lessons around this as well as the history of the holiday.  Every year I have done a "Thinking Thankful Thoughts" lesson.  I begin the lesson with reading Thanks for Thanksgiving.

  Then, I discuss with the children what I am thankful for.  Once I have given them my list, I have each student tell me one thing that they are thankful for.  Sometimes this can be a difficult concept for the students on the spectrum, but, with the help of our para and some visual cues from the book, they can usually tell us.  After we have all taken a turn, I introduce the craft that we will make.  It begins with a piece of white paper that has been cut into a circle to fit on the inside of an orange paper plate.  This is where the students will draw what they are thankful for.  Once they have drawn their picture, they will then explain to the teacher what they are thankful for.  We write in their responses and help them to glue the paper into the middle of the paper plate.  When they are all completed, we put them out in the hallway into a pumpkin patch.  It ends up looking like this:

  So, there you have a fun and simple craft to display what the students are thankful for!