Holidays present a wonderful opportunity to expose our children to new ideas and vocabulary
We recently explored a new word with our children as it relates to our up and coming Thanksgiving feast. Â That word was cornucopia…
Introducing New Vocabulary
With our Thanksgiving feast fast approaching, we wanted to explore the many different types of foods that are served at a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Â The word cornucopia isn’t a word that we use very often. Â It is a word that was unfamiliar to most of our children. Â A cornucopia is also sometimes referred to as a “horn of plenty” and is a traditional Thanksgiving symbol…
Exploring Fruits and Vegetables
On our large tray, we spread out many different types of play fruits and vegetables. Â We also set out paper bags to use as our cornucopias. Â The children pointed out some of their favorite fruits and vegetables and we discussed some that may have been unfamiliar to them like egg plant…
Filling their Cornucopias
We then invited the children to fill their horns of plenty with all of the fruits and vegetables that they would like to eat at their Thanksgiving feast…
The children grabbed a bag and began filling their cornucopias to the brim…
This activity gave the children a chance to explore lots of new words and they were eager to tell us all about the contents of their cornucopias…
Learning through Play
The play with our pretend fruits and vegetables continued all throughout the week as the children went to the grocery store…
Building Literacy with Books
We also found several books that talked about the kinds of foods people often eat at their Thanksgiving feasts including this fun book titled “One is a Feast for Mouse: A Thanksgiving Tale” by Judy Cox. This book is about a mouse who went off to gather as many left-overs as he could carry from the family table to enjoy a feast for a mouse…
The little mouse in our book tried to balance as many things from the Thanksgiving feast table as he could. He balanced things up high but soon it all came tumbling down to the floor and in the end, he was left with one little pea which was exactly just the right amount for a feast for one…
Retelling the Story
We used our pretend food to retell the story of the little mouse as we worked together to balance the food from our cornucopias on a plate just like the mouse did…
Working Together and Having fun!
Keeping all that food from falling off the plate as we walked across the room was a very big challenge. Â Perhaps, just like the mouse, we don’t need quite so much food for a feast after all!
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