Thankful Things Writing Activity

Raise your hand if you could live the rest of your life without hearing one more essay about your students being thankful for their family and toys!  Peeps, my hand is WAY up! Now, as sweet and endearing as those writings may be, after 18 years of teaching I'm about over them. (Does that sound mean?) In my own school I see the concept starting in Pre-K with cute turkeys and scribbly handwriting telling the world they're thankful for their Famalee or some such cuteness. This year, I did the obligatory turkey project with the same ol' same ol' thankful things, but as I was doing it, it occurred to me that it was time to kick it up a notch. I decided to stretch their little imaginations a bit and ask them to think of ways they're thankful for some unusual things that are totally worth being thankful for, but never make it into one darn Thanksgiving project!

I started by reading one of my favorite seasonal books - We Gather Together, Now Please Get Lost by Diane DeGroat. In the book Gilbert learns to be thankful for Phillip even though Phillip is not exactly one of his favorite people geese. That inspired this writing project. I listed some everyday items on little slips of paper and put them in a cup. Then I had each student pull a slip from the cup and announce what they had. Here are some of the choices...you can imagine the puzzled looks on their seven year-old faces when they pulled "band-aid" out of a cup that was supposed to hold a cool topic for a Thanksgiving project! (Don't click yet, but there is a link at the end for a free copy of everything you'll need to do this lesson if you'd like)

After sufficient giggle time passed, I started with a think-aloud on my topic. I chose baby wipes. I talked about how I'm thankful that they make cleaning the classroom easier, that they smell nice and how some of them even kill germs! That got the ball rolling. I gave them a few minutes to talk things over with their partner and then asked for some volunteers to share. It was a little slow going, but eventually, the ideas were flying! We did a lot of talking and sharing ideas before I gave them this frame to help them organize their ideas. <--This may or may not be how you teach writing. Personally, I rarely use a frame like this, but it was very helpful with this concept which was a bit more abstract. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Do you all use frames like this often? It actually worked out pretty well.

After they wrote, I edited with them and they published it on this little turkey peek-over pattern I've had in my files for at least a hundred years.

They grumbled a bit at the beginning, but their finished products were so incredible! This really helped them look at things in a whole new light. The ideas they came up with were things I hadn't even thought of. Here are some more examples:

If this looks like something you'd like to try, click {HERE} to get a free copy of the lesson steps, word cards and pre-writing frame. I put it together pretty quickly, so if you spot any mistakes, let me know. Sorry I can't share the peek-over turkey, I don't have the rights for that. Boo, Hiss Copyright Police!!