Where's the Turkey FREE book Companion + Paperback or Kindle Edition

"Where's the Turkey" is available as a Kindle book or paperback!

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 12-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.

Cookie's Week

Cookie's Week is a nice, short, low text book with one of the most captivating first lines ever:

"On Monday, Cookie fell in the toilet".

I have yet to see a straight face after that! Below is a link to a Google doc I made (hope it works!). It contains scans of parts of each page of the book (just for reference) and some of the 'wh' questions I use for each page. I made 2 sets of days of the week so we could do some matching. The kids can order the days, then move the Cookie portrait along as they try to recall the book. I also made a word document with "On Monday..." etc, so the students can make their OWN week with what they do, did, or would LIKE to do. I don't have a file for that, but it is easy to make.

Pizza!

Back to school and back to blogging! It always takes me a few weeks to 're-calibrate' as I leave summer vacation behind.

Everyone loves pizza and there are loads of activities to do with a pizza unit. Pictured above are 2 of my favorites. One is a math pizza puzzle - the kids assemble it as they make responses. It is such a simple thing, but kids love it! The other activity, Pizza Plate, works well for language or artic responses. I cut out rough - very rough, one might even say abstract - representations of pizza toppings from construction paper. Then I have the kids use red and brown crayons to put "sauce" and "crust" on the "dough". Then they request and glue various toppings. I also have a rolling pin they use to flatten the paper plate (roll the dough) before coloring.

I always like to have some literature tie-in and depending on the age of my group, I use one of the following books:


Pete's a Pizza by William Steig This is especially good for preK because they love to be 'rolled' like Pete.

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)by
Philemon Sturges

Curious George and the Pizza

Finally, I love to make little English muffin pizzas with my special ed preK class. We have a toaster oven in the class and I just use English muffins, sauce and preshredded mozzarella cheese. I have a Tech Talk set up for requesting ingredients.

If you have any other great pizza ideas, please leave a comment!

Groundhog Day

This is my favorite book for Groundhog Day! There are so many great 'wh' questions and prediction questions.

After reading, there a are a few groundhog crafts and cut-n-pastes you could do. Or, doing a sequence activity (holiday or months) would tie in nicely with this book.

Here are the questions I ask through the book:

1. First I make sure they are somewhat familiar with what GH Day is all about. Then we talk about hibernating.

2. Why is GH reading "How to hibernate?". Sometimes we come back and review if that book helped him or not.

3. When is Columbus Day? Why is he brushing his teeth? What will he do next?

4. He set his clock for Feb 2nd. Is that how our clocks work?

5. Half past October - what will he see on the next page (I ask this preceeding every holiday shown).

6. It is Halloween- how do you know? (I ask this for each holiday).

7. After we've established that he gets a ride home, I ask for predictions about 'who' will give him a ride at each holiday.

8.Other questions - what season is it? how do you know?

9. What does "make yourself scarce" mean and why does the turkey want to do that?

10. Also after each line noting that "GH had never seen this before", I ask why not? We discuss how, for every winter before, the GH had slept through all the holidays pictured.

11. Why is he reading a book about gardening?

Santa Duck

We just had a massive snowstorm here on the east coast so all my remaining Christmas ideas may go unused! This book is new to me this year and contains a treasure trove of great WH questions. I'll list them below, basically following the sequence of the story. Naturally this is only appropriate for kids on your caseload who celebrate Christmas.

1. Does a duck come down your chimney? (if it's not a tough crowd, they laugh)

2. If there is one day left, what day is xmas? What does Nicholas usually get for xmas?

3. Who gave him the hat and coat? Did he like it? How do you know?

4. What do you think a chicken would want for xmas? (I cover the text for all the animal pages if I have a reader; also I accept any good associative word - even eggs). What do all the things the chicken wants mean/have in common? So what does the chicken want to do for xmas?

5. What do you think a cat would want for xmas? What does 'bonkers' mean? Why does Nicholas think all the animals are bonkers? What does the cat want to do with the things on his list? Also I review the meaning of canary and trout.

6.What would a turtle want? (I'll take almost anything..pond, friend, shell) Why does the turtle want something fast?

7. What would a squirrel want? (review almonds, walnuts) Why does he want a shovel?

8. What would a rabbit want? Does he want a big cake or a small cake? What's another word for 'frosting'?

9. For higher level students, we discuss what happened when the hat fell off? Did he forget? What did he realize? Why did he want to get rid of the hat? What does 'phew' mean? What do you think will happen to the cow now?

10. What would a cow want? Why does he want an XL hat?

11. Which animal is Nicholas' brother? How do you know?

12. What do you think Nicholas wants? Will he get it even though he didn't tell Santa his list?

13. Who wrote the note? What does Santa mean when he says "May I count on you next year?"

14. On the last page: I just review what everyone got and talk about it.