"Thanks for Thanksgiving"

Today we had a day complete with several special activities.

We spent some time this morning reading the book "Thanks for Thanksgiving".  We used it as a springboard to discuss some of the things that we were thankful for.  The students came up with lots of great ideas from our friends and family, to the food that we eat and the homes that we live in.  When each student knew what they were thankful for, they received a paper to write about it.  These papers will be put together and made into a class book for our classroom library.

This afternoon, we had two special activities.  The first was our classroom Thanksgiving activity stations.  Several different stations were placed around the room, and students chose where they wanted to go.  There were math games, a reading corner, a Thanksgiving graphing activity, and a station that had activity books.

 After recess we went to a special presentation in the gym, a mini Folklorama.  There were two groups that performed.  The first were two Aboriginal singers and dancers.  They preformed a couple of traditional songs, and then one of them showed us a hoop dance.  She was simply amazing!  By the end, she was dancing with 9 hoops!  They also asked for all the Grade 3 students to come to the front to participate in the friendship dance, so we all got to dance around the gym.  Following this performance was a performer who was originally from West Africa.  He was a gifted vocalist and demonstrated many different animal sounds so that we could hear the sounds of the jungle where he is from.  He then demonstrated some instruments and taught us a dance.  It was a fun way to end our day.

Happy Thanksgiving!