Crayons & Cuties In Kindergarten: Thanksgiving Fine Motor and Math Fun!

My students LOVE play dough!

I love giving them the chance to work on some fine motor skills, so next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, we are going to review identifying, counting and ordering numbers 0-5 using play dough!

Are you ready to make a play dough turkey?

It's super easy!

First either purchase or make brown play dough.

If you are choosing to make it, it adds another element to fine motor work!

Mix equal parts red and brown play dough by kneading them together until they are fully mixed:

The amount of red you use will alter your shade of brown. The one on the left had more red than green. The one on the right had more green!

Now it's time to build a turkey!

I had some beads around my classroom, but you can use scraps of paper too!

Roll 2 balls of play dough and stack them:

Then add eyes, a beak, waddle and feet!

Cut pipe cleaners in half (thirds would work too!) and stick them into the bottom ball of the turkey:

Here is the turkey ready for some math fun:

Decide on what you'd like your students to practice!

Maybe ordering numbers from 0-5:

Maybe roll a number, ID the number, count that many beads and show it on a 'feather':

Maybe you are working on addition!

I have these neat dice within a dice (from Lakeshore) but you could use 2 dice.

They add the two numbers and show the sum on a feather:

(They can even use 2 different color beads to show what parts were added and/or use a dry erase board to record the number sentences!)

Or maybe you just want them to practice some fine motor work! Have students flip a sand timer (I found mine at Dollar Tree 'teacher section') and put beads on the pipe cleaner until the time runs out: