Little Turkey, Big Turkey

This week we have been focusing on Thanksgiving.  Our reading books have been about Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, but for arts and crafts we have mainly stuck with turkeys, mainly because they lend themselves to lots of different projects.  Irony: we don't usually EAT turkey on Thanksgiving, as we are usually in Disney World (my theory -- if you want turkey that badly, hike over to Frontierland and get yourself a drumstick), but since we have several flocks of turkeys that live in the woods surrounding our house, Jude is well acquainted with the birds.

I saw a really cute idea online that used heart shapes to create a turkey.  I've seen Valentine's day "Heart Mice" but never a turkey.  On the (heart shaped) tailfeathers, the child can write things he is thankful for.  We created ours and Jude decided he was thankful for "Celia," "Mom," "Dad," and "Jude."  ("Celia" and "Dad" are harder to read since he used a red colored pencil to write those.)  Jude was happy to make his arts-and-crafts turkey - seeing the colorful pile of hearts was great motivation for him to finish the rest of his work.  (Arts-and-crafts ALWAYS come at the end of the day, as his reward for finishing everything.)

Damien was hanging around coloring and mimicking Jude through most of our school day, so I cut him out a heart turkey as well.  However, by the time Jude was done with his work, Damien was already laying down for his nap.  I set the packet aside, figuring he could work on it later.

Then big brother Luke came home with an English assignment: write a haiku about something in nature, and then write it on an illustration of your topic.  Waste not, want not, but poor Damien...like most Thanksgiving turkeys, the leftovers were remade into a new masterpiece.  Luke re-cut the pieces to (as he put it) "de-kindergarten-ize" it, then arranged the feathers and wrote the haiku across the tail.  He used the pattern of the feathers to separate the lines: the 5 syallable lines flank his body while the 7 syllable lines arch behind his head on the yellow and orange feathers.

The haiku:

The wild turkey struts
His tail feathers spreading wide
Marching tall and proud.

Note the google eyes - despite being a high school turkey, he needed a touch of whimsy.

Tomorrow we will make hand outline turkeys.  I think instead of making Damien wait until the end of the day, we will start his day with coloring.