DIY: Turkey From A Cascade Container

I love the book "Turkey Trouble", by Wendy Silvano.  It's a fun book where the turkey wears different disguises of the other animals on the farm.  The turkey saves it's life by bringing the family pizza and disguising itself as the pizza delivery person.  The family eats pizza instead of turkey for Thanksgiving.

I wanted to make a turkey to use with my kids.  I wanted to make a turkey that could actually "eat" the pizza.  Since I love using Cascade dish detergent containers, I new that would become our turkey!

This turkey is very easy to make.  I start out with a Cascade container.  Make sure to wash it out, because it has a very strong smell!

I cover my containers with foam.  You can use construction paper, but over the years I've found that foam is much more durable.  It is really able to stand up to the "love" of small children.  Another tip-  Kids will pull off parts of your animals, but foam is very easy to hot glue back on :)

Step 1- Cover the turkey's body with dark brown foam.  I wrap the foam around the bottom of the container.  Use two pieces of foam for the top.  This will allow the turkey's mouth to open.

Step 2- Cut out a beak from yellow foam.  Attach the beak to the front of the container. 

Make sure that you do not attach behind the crease.  The turkey needs to be able to open his mouth.

Step 3- Cut out feathers is multiple colors and hot glue them to the back of the turkey.  I fanned them out and was liberal with the hot glue. 

 

Step 4- Create eyes for the turkey.  I cut two large circles out of white foam and two small circles out of black foam.  I hot glued the eyes to the top of the turkey, behind the crease.

You made a turkey!  You can use this turkey for tons of activities.

We have used it with:

- Counting activities: Use tongs, spoons, spatulas and feed the turkey different amounts of "food"

- Letter identification and beginning sounds: We used the fun food cards from my Thanksgiving Dinner "Roll, Say, Keep" pack.  Each child got a few letter cards and placed them in front of them.  I would say a letter or letter sound, I differentiated by ability.  The child with the matching letter would feed the letter to the turkey. 

- Sorting food by taste:  We also used a lot of language, by talking about the different types of food.  We talked about the tastes of salty, sweet, sour, bitter.  Students were able to sort food, by type, and feed to the turkey.

- Rhyming:  The turkey can only eat rhyming words.  Find the matches and feed to the turkey.

- Spelling words: Spell and feed.

The list can go on and on.  You can practice any skill with this manipulative.  Adding the turkey, brings novelty to skill practice.  Kids tend to love anything new and fun!  Take advantage of this :)

One more idea for your turkey!  Read the fun book "Turkey Trouble".  Since the turkey ends up eating pizza, you can create your own pizzas to feed to the turkey.  Great fine motor practice and the kids make the manipulatives to use with the turkey.

We started out cutting out circles of tan foam.  If you want to create lasting manipulatives, use foam.  If you just want kids to make these to take home, use construction paper. 

 Cut out red blobs for the sauce, yellow snips for cheese, white snips for onions, green snips for green pepper, ands dark brown circles for pepperoni.  Each child was able to design their own pizza.

We used spatulas to "feed the turkey"!  The kids loved it and it helped with counting and fine motor!

I hope you have fun creating your own turkey!

 

My computer has been crashing for the last month, so stay tuned for a ton of DIY manipulatives!  I have been creating with my glue gun, instead of the computer!!
Find some more DIY math manipulatives here!!  I have a collection of some of my favorites.

Stop, Swap & Roll + Giveaway

I am so excited to be a part of this product swap.  Swapping products are a great for everyone.  I got to collaborate with Ashley, of One Sharp Bunch.  I love swapping, because you get to know another teacher through their products and I always feel like I am a better teacher after swapping. 

 

 Ashley is amazing!  She sent me her November Poetry Binder pack for the swap.  I have dabbled with poetry on and off in the past year, but my poetry centered around the "FIVES".  Each set of activities was set around one poem.

Ashley created an entire month of different activities that center around 5 different poems.  There are enough activities for each poem that you can keep the poem going all week long.  Genius! 

 

 There are so many options with Ashley's poetry binder.  You can use the activities in class with a pocket chart, in a poetry journal or binder, as homework each day of the week, and there are extension activities for each poem.

If you choose to create a Poetry binder, there is a cover, poems in both black & white and color, parent letters to start out your "I Can Read" homework, and great suggestions on how to use the "I Can Read" binders for homework.

 

I used this poetry pack with my preschooler and some kindergarteners around the neighborhood.  They LOVED it!  I plan to use each month of Ashley's poetry binder with my daughter.  I searched around the house and I used a binder that I already had.  It is a larger binder, but Ashley recommends using a 1" poly binder from Target or Walmart.  Below is an example of her binder.  She attaches a label to the front of each binder with each students' name.  The smaller binder is more practical for an entire class of kids.

The parent letter is included at the front of the binder.  This is helpful, because parents know exactly what the homework will be and what is expected of both parent and child. 

Another tip, from Ashley, is to add a zippered pouch with crayons and pencils.  This will help students to always have the materials that they need.

Now to the fun!  Here is one of the poems that is included in the November pack.  I printed out the included poems to use in my pocket chart and the matching pictures to help students read the poem. 

Each poem comes in four different forms.  There is a color and b/w version of the poem.  The poem and a graphic are included.  This can be used with a document camera, interactive white board, for a poetry center, to include in a poetry journal, or whatever you choose.  There is also a color and b/w version of the poem in homework form.  The poem is included along with a homework option for Monday-Thursday.  One piece of paper for 4 days of homework.  Awesome!  Students will be working on the same skills that they used during the week and on identifying color words and following directions.

 

I can go on and on about how much I love this idea!  It is reinforcing the skills that are being used during the week, as well as, only using one piece of paper for 4 days of work.  Also, parents are provided with a framework that allows them to be actively involved in their child's reading progress.  Again, genius!

 

I created some fall focus wands that are perfect to use with Ashley's poems and for tons of other uses in your classroom or home.  You can get a free set of focus wands here.  I would love to know how you use them!

In the picture below, I had students use the focus wands to identify one of the specific words that we were focusing on that day.  They were able to use the wand to narrow their attention to each individual word in the poem.  You can also use highlighter tape, vis-a-vis markers, pointers, swatters, cool plastic pointy fingers, or anything you can imagine.

I've included a large and small version of the focus wands, so that you can use them with the pocket chart poem and with the poetry binder poem.  Again, students are able to practice the same skills in the whole group, poetry center, and through their homework.

I laminated a copy of the poem and had the kids use vis-a-vis markers to complete the homework activities.  This could be used in a small goup, or individually, with kids that need a little more practice with the skills.  I love the flexibility that this product provides.

Each poem has activities for students to extend their learning.  Here is a game that is included with the poem "The Big Scarecrow".  Ashley created a game called "Shoo!"  Students will practice reading color words and sight words, while watching out for the crow that says "Shoo!"  There are also editable cards for you to fill in your own words.  This makes it very easy for you to differentiate the game for your students! 

Another great extension activity is the "Sail and Spell".  There are 4 options to this activity.  You can differentiate for each student.  There 3 and 4 phoneme options for both types of mats.  In the version below, you will present students with a word and students will stretch, or hear and segment the phonemes of the word.  As they stretch the word, they will move the boat across the ocean.  Each phoneme has its own dot.

 In the more difficult version, students will listen to the word, stretch the word, and write the letter of each phoneme that they hear.  If you laminate the mats, they can use dry erase or vis-a-vis markers to write the letters.

There are also extension worksheets for some of the poems.  Here is a great one that focuses on opposites.

 And another that focuses on rhymes.

I can't get to all of the amazing parts of this pack, because there are so many fabulous resources.  I loved using this poetry program.  I think that the process of reviewing and analyzing Ashley's poetry pack has made me a better teacher.  I know I will incorporate her great ideas into my own teaching and my students will benefit!

Ashley has put all her poetry sets on sale for 20% off!  You can snatch up these fabulous poetry packs on sale for the length of this hop.  I know you will love them as much as I do!!  Click on the pictures to get the poetry packs.

Don't forget to enter the giveaway at the end of this post, so you can win the "I Can Read: November Poetry Binder"!

Don't forget to hop over to One Sharp Bunch to see my interactive play dough mats in action AND hop back to Jungle Learners blog to see some more swaps. 

 

I put all my Interactive Play Dough Mats on sale for this hop!  They will be 20% off until Monday!  You can also enter a giveaway to win my play dough mats on Ashley's blog!

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