Thankful Little Turkeys: Handprints and Counting

You don’t need to celebrate Thanksgiving to borrow its best ideas: autumn colours, turkeys with too many feathers, and saying thank you for the good things. Vocabulary of the day: turkey, feathers, thank you, colours, and numbers.

The hand-print turkey

The classic, and forever wonderful:

1. Paint your child’s palm brown and each finger a different autumn colour — red, orange, yellow, green — naming the colours as you paint (the brush tickles; the giggling is part of the lesson).
2. Press onto paper: the palm is the turkey’s body, the fingers are its feathers.
3. Add an eye, a beak, and little legs with a marker.

While it dries, count the feathers together: one, two, three, four, five!

Roll-and-draw counting game

Take a die. Roll it, count the dots out loud in English, and draw that many somethings on the turkey — feathers, spots, worms for its dinner. Numbers one to six, practised until the turkey is thoroughly decorated.

The thankful minute

At the table or at bedtime, each of you says one thing you’re happy about today — in whatever mix of languages works — and closes with the English words: “Thank you!” For small children this isn’t grammar, it’s a warm little ritual. Those are the words that stay forever.

At home: the hand-print trick works all year — pink palms become flamingos in spring, green ones become monsters at Halloween. Same craft, new vocabulary every season.