I like using the holiday books by Jenna Lettice which count down the 12 days before different holidays.  The newest book that just got released is The 12 Days of Thanksgiving.  Just like with her other 2 holiday books I created some visuals to pair with the book along with visual questions.  If you are interested in using this Free resource with your students click the link – The 12 Days of Thanksgiving

This book is similar to “The 12 Days of Halloween” which I shared about last month.  This book counts the days until Thanksgiving while repeating the previous day’s item(s).  “One the first day of Thanksgiving I was thankful for: An evening at home with family.”  Have your student find the picture of family and attach it to the book.  Then we count one family.  I just put a piece of hard Velcro in the book and soft Velcro on the back of each picture so the pictures can be attached into the book.

“On the second day of Thanksgiving I was thankful for:  Two sacks of apples”.  I pointed to the two bags of apples on the page and my students and I counted “one, two”.  Then I had a student find the picture of the apples and attach it in the book.

I continued on this way throughout the book.  We counted the number of items we were thankful for and answered “how many” and other “wh” questions throughout the book.  For example, “What do you use to rake leaves?” or “What does the turkey say?”

For your lower functioning students you can give them a choice of 2 pictures and simplify the language as you read the book.  “turkeys or pie?”

For some of my students we would say all the items over again.  “Seven sports fans play.  Six turkeys gobbling.  Five piles of leaves.  Four golden buckles.  Three fall squash.  Two sacks of apples and an evening at home with family.”  I actually sometimes flipped back through the pages to review all those concepts after each new day.  However, for some of my lower groups I might not review all the items.  I would just say the thankful item on that page and count them.  You can adapt the book to meet the needs and level of your students.

Lots of great adjectives, verbs, and holiday vocabulary terms to model for your students while reading this book.

After we finished reading the book, I had some of my students answer the visual questions.  I would read the first question and all three answer choices.  If the student knew the answer he/she could color/circle the answers.  Then I would go onto the second question.

With some of my group I had to use the book to help answer each question.  I would show them the page again and review that day’s item.  For example, “eleven hot pies cooling”.  “What did you see on the 11th day….pies, ice cream, or cookies?”

If you want to use this free resource with your students click the link – The 12 Days of Thanksgiving.  This book just got released last month and I found it on Amazon.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!!