PeeWees: Run, Turkey, Run!

PeeWee mom Lisa's two weeks were split around Thanksgiving, so she did a Thanksgiving book the week before, and an unbelievably fun Christmas book after.  Run, Turkey, Run! was a huge hit with Poppy, and I'm pretty sure all the kids - two weeks later, she is still telling me to be the farmer and chase her saying, "Run, turkey, run!"

The book was Run, Turkey, Run! Definitely not a best seller, but I wanted to get the PeeWees familiar with one aspect of Thanksgiving. This book has tons of repetition – “Run Turkey, Run” – and had tons of potential for activities, so for those reasons, it was a good pick.

 

The book is about how Thanksgiving is coming and the turkey needs to escape or he’ll be Thanksgiving dinner. The farmer chases after the turkey. He hides in a duck pond, is found, “Run Turkey, Run!” He hides in a horse bar, is found, “Run Turkey, Run!” He hides in a pig pen, is found, “Run Turkey, Run!” etc. Then he hides in the trees and the farmer can’t find him. So the farmer and his family eat grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. After Thanksgiving they head out to chop down their Christmas tree and when they chop down their tree, there is the tukey, AHHHH, “Run Turkey, Run!”

 

Play time – They colored on a 10’ long “run” of paper.

Circle time – We talked about Thanksgiving coming up and that we eat turkeys on thanksgiving. As we sang the welcome song, each pee wee wore the turkey hat when it was their turn (VERY funny). 

We counted turkeys and yelled out the number each time, “ONE turkey!” “TWO turkeys!” etc., and read the book. 

 As we read, every time it said, “Run turkey, run” the pee wees had to stand up and run in place on their carpet square. I will definitely incorporate them acting something out in every future book. It kept their attention and made the book more alive to them.

 

Snack time – We ate grilled cheese sandwiches in turkey shapes, apples in turkey shapes, and a turkey and an ax cookie.  [Not everyone would own an ax cookie cutter, but leave it to Lisa!]

 

Craft – pinecone turkeys. Two things to note. NO ONE liked getting glue on their fingers and feathers weren’t terribly popular. Live and learn!

 

Pin the hat on the turkey – VERY funny. We did it one time where they just had to stick the hat on the turkey and a second time where I put a blindfold on them and repeated the activity. It was a good way to introduce the blindfold concept and they all gave it a try. Surprisingly, everyone hit the turkey with their hat with the blindfold on.

 

Activity part I – Run turkey, run! Game. We made our turkey heads – they LOVED the water colors and probably would have been content doing water colors for a while – good to note for future crafts.

 

Activity part 2 – we put our coats, shoes, and turkey heads on and headed out to the yard for the last 10 minutes. I dressed in bad plaid as the farmer. They ran to a pretend duck pond, would hide, I would arrive and find them and they would take off running again yelling, “run turkey, run!” Then the pig pen, etc.

What made me laugh most was after all of this repetition, I would say, “what’s this?” and point to something with a turkey on it and the responses would be “a chicken” “a rooster” “a duck” – oh well! At least I think they had fun!