Feast for 10!

Even after 12 years of doing the same activity I really never tire of this activity. Originally this idea came from Box It and Bag It from The Math Learning Center and it has slightly been modified over the years. We make place mats and use patterns to decorate them for our Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast. This year we decided to use hexagons, trapezoids and rhombus die cut shapes for our ABC pattern because it gave us tons of opportunities to use this vocabulary and also practice patterning. Additionally, this activity can serve as an assessment piece for patterning if the children have worked on it independently. 

We kick off our Thanksgiving Unit Study by reading one of my all time favorites, Feast for 10 by Cathryn Falwell. This is a great book to tie into math at this time of year and it gives us a great opportunity to talk about preparing for a feast and how it takes everyone to help. We also learn about setting the table to prepare for a feast. We use the place mats during our feast and send them home for children to practice setting the table at home with their families. 

We also read Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert this time of year. We plant seeds in the fall to use in the soup that the children cut and prepare for their feast. We had some garden renovations this year and realized pretty early on that growing something for our soup would not be possible this Thanksgiving. Since we have no home grown vegetables this year, we have asked our children to bring an item for the soup that they will wash, peel and dice with plastic knives for our soup that we will share. This activity has been a class favorite each year and I look forward to this time no matter how many Kindergarten Thanksgivings I have had... I am thankful for all of them.