teach me mommy :: gobble

Today the skies are gray and cozy and I am wishing for a big rainstorm. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't even mind a snow storm! I know that is just crazy talk for so early in the season, but I can't help myself. Starting my Christmas shopping at the showcase just really got me in the mood for some fine winter celebration.

But I am trying to reign myself in and take one holiday at a time. After all, Halloween just ended and Thanksgiving is still a couple weeks away. So in my attempts to pace myself, for teach me mommy school today we talked all about that poor little rascal; the turkey.

First we talked about the characteristics of a turkey: feathers, gobbling, head strutting, how the Native Americans helped the pilgrims catch wild turkeys, and it's ensuing role as the thanksgiving feast's main course. . . The girls were fine with this--no widening eyes or sadness was observed. We played turkey hide and seek. Basically hide and seek except the girls say gobble gobble really quietly while I look for them. And then squeal like wild turkeys when I find them. (I didn't tell them to do that last part.)

Then I told the story of Tom Turkey and his temper tantrums which caused him to turn all sorts of vibrant colors. When he finally would calm down after each temper tantrum, his feathers would all turn back to brown except one. It's a cute little story that's been told to each child during their teach me mommy years. Hence all the crayon colorings on the all ready colorful turkeys. If you would like a copy of the story let me know and I'll email it to you.

For our little turkey craft we cut feathers out of some cardstock paper and taped them to a toothpick. On the back of each feather is written something the girls are thankful for. Then they stuck the feathers into the turkey (apple) and put some eyes, a beak (half a starburst) and a gobbler (a chocolate goldfish cracker) on. We attached all those with a little peanut butter.

For snacks they each got a random assortment of pretzel sticks, m & m's, starburst halves, chocolate goldfish crackers and peanut butter covered ritz crackers from which they could assemble their own little turkeys. And gobble up. Which they did. Every last crumb.

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here are the goods girls:
i couldn't get my story to scan in very well, but I found a site with the tom turkey story here.
the turkey picture i used is here.
and the wise old owl is here.