Where's the Turkey Free Book Companion

It's time for a warm holiday gathering, and traditional family favorites are making their way to the Thanksgiving table. But where is the turkey? Find out in this richly illustrated picture book about a vegan family's Thanksgiving. 

My students love to search for the turkeys hidden throughout the book. I am the author-illustrator and I'm a long-time vegan, as well as a speech therapist. Like most SLPs, I use children's literature almost daily in my sessions at a primary school, and I was inspired to create my own Thanksgiving picture book after finding a need for a story in which the Turkey is not threatened at some point. 

Click on any of  the illustrations in this post to get my free 13-page book companion which contains bingo cards, a pragmatic activity, activity extension ideas, and more.

Of course you can use the companion pack without purchasing the book, but if you would like a copy, click here for the Amazon link.

Animal Sort

As part of my unit on Animals, I get out my old plastic animal set and some props. The wooden house and barn were made when my daughter was little, but you can use anything that represents a habitat - even just a laminated picture or a Lego structure. The pond is a piece of felt.

I put all the animals into the black bag, then the student says a target word or asks a question (see the prompt below - we were working on using "IS"). Then they pick an animal and choose the correct habitat. Some of my students practiced saying "The (animal) goes in the (zoo, farm, etc).

Sometimes I ask the question. For example, "What animal says moo?" or "What animal lays eggs?" Then I hand them the animal when they guess.

Snow Prepositions

These bears are from an old game by Linguasystems. I don't play the game. Instead, I use the pictures to work on prepositions (using the sentence strip as needed). Seems boring but my K, 1, and 2s seem to love it!

Snowman Cootie

I'm not sure where I got the "parts" for this snowman, but I'm sure you can find some online somewhere. I drew the snowman body myself, and again, I'm SURE you can find a better body! Just like in the old fashioned cootie game, you roll a die (or spin a spinner - in fact you could even make a spinner with the parts on it) and see who completes the snowman first. Now, if we would just get some snow..

Rice Box

I've never been a big fan of using food for non-food purposes. For example, I really disapprove of pasta necklaces on principle. However, I do love my rice box and, sanitary purists plug your ears, I've been using the same rice for 4 years. We build immunity in my classroom!

I hide all kinds of things in the rice throughout the year. I don't bring it out until Halloween, when I hide some themed erasers. What you see in the picture is a selection of the mini-toys I hide around December. Sometimes I hide picture magnets and we put them up on a surface as we find them. As usual, say sounds, make sentences, describe objects at each turn.

Folder Articulation Activity

This one takes some work, but I used it as a warm-up for many weeks in a row. When the students and I were tired of it, I packed it up with this note and sent it home for homework.

I made a Tree.

I originally made this tree at the suggestion of my awesome special ed prek teacher. We hung Easter eggs on it that had different pictures inside (and some had candy - intermittent reinforcement heh heh).  I found, though, that I can hang lots of stuff on it through the year, like these flowers we made in the spring (each petal was earned by doing a speech task, but you knew that already!)

All I did was pour some plaster of paris in an old plastic flower pot (that I lined with a plastic shopping bag- gah so much plastic!). Then I stuck a suitable branch in it, and then put some gravel from my driveway around it for aesthetic purposes.

What else could we hang on this?