Turkey Day

Objective:
The students will create patterns.

Materials

• Feathers as manipulatives - these can either be colored feathers from a craft store, construction paper feathers, or crayons so the students may color their own feathers.

• Long strips of paper (the size of sentence strips)

Procedure

1. Discuss color patterns with the students.  Explain how to label patterns using letters.

2. Hand out the paper and the feathers (if applicable).  Give the students patterns they need to create using their feathers (or to be drawn with crayons).  For example ask the students to create a pattern using the format A-B-A-B-A-B.  Continue to give the students oral directions to complete the patterns.

3. Have the students create their own color patterns using the feathers to be glued on the paper strips, or using their crayons to draw feather shapes.  They should label their pattern using letters. 

Other Lesson Ideas

1. As an alternative to the above lesson, have the students complete feather story problems using the feathers as manipulatives.  For example, "A turkey had 5 feathers, he lost 2, how many does he have left?"

2. Practice counting by 2's.  Use turkey feet as a guide.  For example, "If there are 3 turkeys, how many turkey feet are there?"

3. Use turkey tracks as a unit of measure.  Print out the Turkey Track Worksheet and have the students count how many steps a turkey has to take to get to certain places.  For example, "How many steps must a turkey take to get across your desk?"  The turkey tracks may be cut out in strips and taped together to form a turkey track measuring tape.  Discuss with the students how it will be easier to do their measuring if they mark off every 5th or 10th track.  Then they may count by 5's or 10's to do their measuring.