Thanksgiving was not an official holiday until 1863 when President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November “a day of thanksgiving and praise.”

75 years later, in 1939, President Roosevelt set Thanksgiving one week earlier to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas. Finally, in 1941, Congress ruled that the fourth Thursday of November was going to be the legal federal holiday to celebrate Thanksgiving.

A few writing ideas for a classroom or family at home:

Pretend you are president. Write a proclamation for Thanksgiving Day.  When do you think it should be and how should we celebrate?

Make up your own holiday and describe what should be done on that day.

Read a book about the Mayflower’s trip to America. Write about what it would be like on the Mayflower. If you could only bring one or two items from your home, what would it be?

Keep a Thanksgiving journal. Every year, write the things you are most thankful for and let each member of the family contribute. What a neat tradition and keepsake to look at every Thanksgiving!

An easy to make and fun to read activity. You will need a ring, any size, hole punch and paper (index cards, sentence strips, or cut card stock.) Write words appropriate for your child’s reading level on each paper, punch a hole in each corner, put onto the ring and you have an instant activity that can even be used in the car!

This ring is for beginning readers and holds the high frequency words. I add one or two each time.

Word ideas for beginning readers: High frequency words (the, is, was etc.), word families (cat, hat, mat, rat), names of friends or family, colors, numbers (one, two), compound words (pancake, sunrise) and any words from a story they may be reading.

Fluent Readers: Vocabulary or spelling words from school, states and capitals, countries, most common misspelled words (believe, definitely, restaurant) and any dates they may need to remember.

The link below will take you to a list of commonly misspelled words.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/misspelled.html

This is a fun activity for children learning to alphabetize words. Cut out clothing shapes like socks, pants and shirts or if you want to keep it simple use index cards.  Write words appropriate for your child or just the ABC’s for the young children.

Tie string from one chair to another (or what works in your house or classroom) and have child use clothespins to hang the words in alphabetical order.

Other ways to use the Hanging Out activity:

Number Order: 1,2,3,4…

Skip Counting:5,10,15,20….

Sentence Order: Mix a sentence up and have child hang in correct order.

Place Dates from a Time Line in Order. This could be an informal assessment of history lesson.

As children begin to read they need lots of practice and this is a fun and different way to approach reading and sentence structure.  You will need a simple book that is at your child’s reading level, this can be attained from the library or your child’s teacher. Bookstores also carry emergent reading books. After reading the book,  write one or a few of the sentences out on paper or sentence strips.  Cut these apart and scramble the words. Have your child match the words to the text on the book.  Allowing them to look at the book and as they advance, you can take away the book.

A fun way for children to practice vocabulary, writing and quick thinking! Prepare the child by talking about some of the words they know and explain they will be writing the words down on paper until you say stop.  You will need paper, pencil and a timer for this activity. Set the timer for two minutes and then see how many words the child can write in that time. Count the words and write the number at the bottom.  You can keep a chart and do this daily to watch the progress.

Also, to expand this activity you can give your child themes such as spring, school or sports or you can have them write words that start with a certain letter.

In a classroom, this would be a good pre-and post-test for a unit of study.

Younger Children:

If your child cannot write yet this activity can be modified by having the child say as many words as they can in one minute as you tally the number of words they say!

These cards are perfect for the little ones that are tactile and learn more from touch.

What you will need:

Index cards or card stock cut in squares, any size will do, mine are about 4×6

Marker

Glue

Anything you would like to add such as glitter or sand.

Write one letter on each card (this can be done for numerals and shapes as well.)

Follow the letter with generous amounts of glue, sprinkle on sand if desired.

Let it dry, takes a long time.  Then, have child feel the letters as you and your child practice identifying or making the sounds of the letter.  When child is ready have them close their eyes to guess which letter they are feeling.

This activity can be modified for pre-k but most appropriate for grades K-second. Children will identify letters, practice cutting and create words.

What you will need: old magazines, scissors, glue, construction paper, 26 bags marked with one pair of uppercase and lowercase alphabet letters, pencil or pen

Go on a letter hunt through the magazines and find letters and place them in bag marked with matching letter. Have child or children glue down individual letters to create words for younger ones and sentences for older ones. They may enjoy making messages to give to another child.

Tips:
-Use newspapers.
-This may be a bit much and long for one child, so instead of bags for each letter, just cut out the needed letters to make word or message.
-Lunch bags would be ideal for classroom but may want to use sandwich bags at home with sharpie marker to save space. Or have two-three letters in same bag to conserve space.
-Split this lesson into two days, letter hunt on the first day, messages on the second.

What is a word family? The ending letters are all the same but you can change the first letters to make different words.  This is a great visual for children to see the relationship between words and expand their vocabulary.

This simple to make book is a good tool to use when children are first learning to read and write. Using sentence strips or cut strips of paper write the last letters of the word family leaving space at the beginning (flush right) on a long strip (about 6 inches.)

Example: all.

On little strips write the different beginning letters for the word family words.

Ex: b, c, t, sm, st

Staple together and you will have a flip book to,practice word family words!

Some Word Families

ide: ride, stride, tide, wide

all: ball, call, tall, small, stall,

ight: light, right, sight, bright, tight,

This video shows you how to make a letter sound recognition game to use at home or in the classroom. The bean bag toss game is a valentine theme but could be made for every day use by using another shape besides a heart.  You can adapt this game for older children by writing blends and digraphs (ex: str, bl, sh) or high frequency words on the hearts.

Children love to write and erase. You can take advantage of this fun activity and make it a learning experience without them knowing! The littlest one can experience scribbling on a large scale and enjoy the magic of erasing. Start to make lines and circles and have them follow. If they are ready, have them make a line from top to bottom to start the pre-writing skill. (Most letters are formed top to bottom!)

Three to five year olds will enjoy choosing an animal (character) to be part of the story and you draw while you tell a story. Or, to incorporate math, make story problems. For example, my four year old chose cats playing baseball. We drew cats holding bats and baseballs to represent the number of hits they made. So, as I told the story we had to add the baseballs and find out which team won the game. The beauty of a four year old is your story can be completely silly and they do not care! Or, you could draw ducks swimming and have some fly away for subtraction. You can extend the activity by actually writing the equation or “number sentence” on the board. Not to force the child into learning this, but to expose them to math language and symbols.

There are many ways to use the dry erase board as an educational tool at home or in the classroom and we are always looking for more fun ways to learn!