Turkey Day with primary kids

With the upcoming holiday, Thanksgiving, approaching I decided to teach a brief lesson on Thanksgivinhg. The lesson was only about 30 minutes because there was no way I could keep my fourth graders attention for an hour about an American Holdiay, plus they just dont have the vocabulary to understand. Luckily there is a Thai Holiday on Sunday and I was able to use this to my advantage. I pointed to Sunday and Asked what until I got the right answer. It was circled and colored in Yellow. Thursday was also circled and colored yello and I say America which thet all shouted out Christmas. I went over the word Thanksgiving with pictures. Here is what the simple explanation broke down to.

Thanksgiving Americans eat (act out) and say (act out and said in Thai) Thank you. Then I taught food, family, good health, and friends. Once they understood these four words I had them write (kian) and draw (waat) a picture (ruup) of one of the four words on Turkey feathers which were taped to a turkey I made. It always takes students a long time to pick one because it is not a concept they are used to as I described in an earlier blog. Then to practice speaking skills they had to say "Thank-you for ----" as they placed their feather on the Turkey. This all sounds very simple, but I have to give credit to these ten year olds who can funtion in an almost entirely English class.
I spent the second word going over and drilling words like quiet, ask, say, sit down, hands to yourself. It was one of the hardest and worst lessons I have ever had to give, but now when the student can accomplish a simple task as putting feathers on a turkey with English instructions it is a really big deal! Instructions are a really good English learning tool, but also can be horrible if they are not able to understand. It took me awhile to learn that simple instructions that are clear and can use hand movements to demonstrate are much better that activities that require a lot of explaining- this means sometimes I have to pass on a really good lesson plan I find because of the instructions.