November means fall leaves, football, cranberry sauce, pilgrims, Native Americans, pumpkin pie and TURKEY! In my first grade classroom we make a bulletin board for Thanksgiving. I have a parent helper take each student one by one and ask them how they would cook a turkey if they had to make it for their family for Thanksgiving. The parent types EVERYTHING that the student says. The parent also has a list of prompts if the student cannot think of what to say (how long do you cook it, where do you cook it, do you put anything inside of it, how much do you need to make, etc- I give the parent helper a checklist of things just in case).
I then print them off and the students get to read it to the class (with my help). Afterward, they decorate their border and we post them on the bulletin board:
They are HILARIOUS! Here is an example:
"First you go to Smith's down the street and buy a big turkey. Take it home and rip off the plastic and pull all that yucky stuff out of the middle of it. I think you are supposed to put something inside of the turkey, but I'm not sure what it's called. Turn the oven on to hot. It's 100 degrees hot. Make sure you check the oven a lot because my mom burned one last year. When it's done it will be brown and you can take it out to eat. Put salt and pepper on it. I do like turkey on Thanksgiving Day, but I like chocolate pie better."
For the bulletin board I made a turkey out of butcher paper, the serving dish out of tin foil, and the garnishments are fake ivy leaves.
If you don't want to have a parent helper type up what they say, you can make it into a writing activity.
In this download, I've included a younger grade version, older grade version, and a blank version if you want parents to type up what the child says.
