This week, I re-discovered and had nearly forgotten about “Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Voyagers.”
Sean Patrick is only 3 1/2 but we watched “The Mayflower Voyagers” and discussed the entire movie while it was on. This movie is perfect and appropriate for young kids, but it is meaningful for all ages.
By pointing out all of the details, he stayed engaged and interested.
I said things like “OOhhh look! A map! Do you see the land and the water?” (I paused the movie for a second to point these out).
And then, “Oooh a ship! That ship has a special name called the Mayflower. It is going to take the Pilgrims to America. Would you want to ride on that ship?”
You get the point.
I talk to him a lot during the movie and he really enjoys the commentary, though I know most of you would go NUTS if someone talked the whole way through a movie haha; I understand.
But, for little ones… the dialogue helps them to process what is going on and helps them to put all the pieces together.
Discussing the details also helps children store the information for better memory recall, and helps children to get a better grasp on story elements like setting, plot, characters, major events, and all the underlying details that build comprehension.
This specific movie is currently on Netflix, which is great because (unless you check this out at your local library or find it at a grocery store) it is not too affordable online.
I notice that “coloring pages” are still all the rage, and I actually think so much great conversation and bonding can take place coloring with your kids so I am probably in that mix. My kids and I love to color together.
But, I also like to make templates that I can use for multiple uses.
So, I made a simple but useful and freePilgrim Hat Activity that I am posting for ALL my TMT followers.
You can use this to talk about whoattended the First Thanksgiving.
You can use this to talk about food that we typically eat at Thanksgiving.
Or you can use this to talk about thankfulness of course!
We decided to break out the puff paint and glitter for this one. We ended up finger-painting the globs of puff paint. We had fun, and we talked about the Pilgrims. I reminded him of his school’s Thanksgiving Feast and the Pilgrims costume to make an association. At one point I had to hide the “sugar,” my one year old’s name for glitter, but other than that it was a winner!
Simple, but timely right?
Sean Patrick’s “finished” product…. Oh 3 year olds! 😉
Today, I am sharing a template with you so that your little one can make a personalized headdress.
I always loved doing holiday crafts as a kid, so I am trying to keep that tradition going!
I got this craft idea when I went to my son’s Thanksgiving Feast.
The kids wore headdresses and one class had Native American nicknames written on their headbands, but I thought it would be cute to try it on the feathers.
I thought, I could do that. And as you may know, I like reproducible activities.
So, I made this template for you.
The feathers have upper case letters, lower case letters, and numbers so there are lots of directions you can take this craft.
[Click HERE to become a member and get unlimited access to ALL The Mommy Teacher Printables including this one!
OR CLICK HERE to purchase this Thanksgiving printable individually from my TeachersPayTeachers Store.]
When I did this at home:
My goal today was simply to get Sean Patrick to put the letters of his name in order after I scrambled them up, and give him a fun accessory to wear to go with all of his little Indian songs he has learned.
So, I scrambled them up and asked him to find the letters in his name. He found S, then ‘e,’ then ‘a,’ then ‘n,’ etc., colored them, and then I taped them onto his headband that I cut from a brown paper bag..
You Could:
1) Use this as a number order activity or assessment by teaching your little one to put the feathers in order from 0-9 and then mix the feathers up and see if your little one can put them in order himself.
2) Let your kiddos come up with names for their stuffed animals, put small feather headbands on stuffed animals heads (use a print setting that prints multiple pages at onto one sheet of paper to print small feathers).
3) Place paper feathers on the inside of construction paper to give it a pop of color if you don’t print them onto colored paper or if you children don’t color them in much.
Thank you to everyone who entered!! If you entered and would like a FREE link to my “Turkey Art Templates” then e-mail me jessica (at) themommyteacher (dot) com, and I will also send you a link to my next Thanksgiving activity that I will be posting on Sunday (to those who entered and would like these printables). 😉
So, in a small way, everyone is a winner, but only ONE person could win the Art Table, and Rafflecopter randomly chose “Lisa Wilson!” Congratulations Lisa W.!
Spread the word about The Mommy Teacher because when we reach 200 “Members” we will be doing another big item giveaway!
Casey and I have been SOOOO eager to launch the new design of The Mommy Teacher that we just had to celebrate with an awesome giveaway!
We are giving away one of our favorite things… a wonderfully kid-friendly art table!
We went back and forth about which one to give away and after a close Facebook poll, we decided to let the winner pick!
Yes, if you win you get to PICK whichever one of these art tables you would like:
Oh, and before you enter… read about two quick updates we want to share:
I was itching to do some q-tip painting with the kids but I didn’t feel like googling to find a good turkey art template.
So,
I made three turkey art templates –
1) I made a plain template that you can color, decorate with feathers, glue and glitter, etc. Or, just use any other material you have in your house that you don’t have to shop for.
2) The next template is a turkey that is easy to fill with larger circular materials like pom poms (cotton balls), dot paint, big circle stickers, etc.
3. And, my inspiration for making these… the turkey with feathers perfect for painting with q-tips. Small incentive stickers also fit in these circles if you want to use it more that once!
[Click HERE to become a member to get unlimited access to ALL The Mommy Teacher Printables including this one!
OR CLICK HERE to purchase these Turkey Templates individually from my TeachersPayTeachers Store.]
And here is what some of our time looked/sounded like:
First, I asked Sean Patrick which turkey he wanted to paint first. He told me that he wanted to paint with dot paint first.
So, we put the template with the large circles in front of us first. He picked “blue” paint and I encouraged him to fill in the circles on each tail feather, one at a time. I demonstrated how he could do this on my template in front of me quickly.
(Notice we have already discussed colors, shapes, parts of a turkey, and one-to-one correspondence; your children are learning even when you don’t realize it).
Then, I asked him questions like “How many more do you have left to fill your whole turkey?” “Can you find any feathers that have three circles?” “Which feather has the most circles?” And “What do you think this turkey would say about his new blue tail feathers?” (That last question was just for fun but it gets him thinking outside the box.”
Before moving on to the next template, I encouraged him to color in the other parts of the turkey so he learned/reinforced (beak, wattle, feet, feathers, wings, and I had to google “snood” – the part on top of the head – because I had no clue what it was called).
For the q-tip painting we worked on patterns. I always treat patterns as if I have never taught him about what they are by saying something like, “Oooooooh let’s make a pattern. A pattern is something that repeats itself over and over and over and over and over again.”
“If mommy makes a red and orange pattern I would sing my song red-orange-red-orange-red-orange the whole way through so that I don’t forget my pattern or what comes next.”
If he doesn’t want to do a pattern I don’t stress about it…. this is his time to express himself. I’m just close enough to build on what he is learning.
Finally we did some finger painting to experience the sensory exploration of smearing paint all over, and the science exploration of seeing colors mix together.
Most importantly, we had fun! Isn’t that what it is really about after all?
![The Mayflower Voyagers (This Is America, Charlie Brown) [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BKGN4TEML.jpg)
