Dia de Los Muertos Activity
1. Dia de los Muertos Learning Kit
Veterans Day Activities
2. Thank You Letter to Veteran
Celebrate Veterans Day by having your upper elementary students write a thank you letter to a veteran. This doubles as both a kind act and a chance for your students to practice their writing with a real world task.
If your students struggle with writing, than providing them a thank you letter template can help them organize their thoughts and make their letter more meaningful!
3. American Symbols Activities
Veterans Day provides an opportunity to teach your students why some veterans felt it was worth risking their lives to protect America. Introducing your students to the most important symbols of America can expand their understanding.
This no prep resource introduces your students to 9 American symbols in an engaging way. Students will read short paragraphs about the symbols and complete a variety of comprehension tasks.
Gratitude Activity Ideas
4. Thankful A-Z
5. Thankful for Scientific Discoveries
6. Thank You, Mr. Falker Read Aloud
Thank You, Mr. Falker tells the sweet story of a teacher who went above and beyond in helping a struggling student learn to read. The author, Patricia Polocco, wrote it as a thank you to her teacher Mr. Falker.
Storyline Online has this book available as a read aloud - have students listen to the story and then think about someone in their lives they would like to thank. If you want to extend the activity, they could write a thank you note. Use this thank you letter template to help them write a meaningful, organized letter.
You might also like these questions and other activity ideas to support the book Thank You, Mr. Falker!
Thanksgiving Activity Ideas
8. Divide Thanksgiving Words Into Syllables
Integrate Thanksgiving into your decoding lessons by having 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students divide Thanksgiving-themed words into syllables using syllable rules.
These words are decodable and thematic:
- celebrate
- gizzard
- casserole
- grateful
- leftover
9. Thanksgiving Scribble Story
Give students a sheet of paper with a squiggle on it. Have them draw a Thanksgiving picture, incorporating the squiggle - then write about their drawing!
10. Compare Thanksgiving Traditions
Partner students up and have them compare and contrast how their families celebrate Thanksgiving. Provide students with some questions to help them get the discussion started:
- What Thanksgiving traditions does your family celebrate?
- What is your favorite things about Thanksgiving?
- How do you spend Thanksgiving Day?
- Are there any special foods your family has for Thanksgiving? What are they?
You might also like these other Thanksgiving activity ideas.
11. Observe a Wild Turkey
13. Plimoth Patuxet Museum Resources
14. Thanksgiving Idioms
This is a great time of year to teach your students some idioms related to Thanksgiving and fall, like:
- count your blessings
- stuff your face
- easy as pie
- turn over a new leaf
- the apple doesn't fall far from the tree
15. Turkey Trouble Storyline Online
Have Storyline Online read aloud the Thanksgiving-themed story Turkey Trouble to your students!
Looking for more Thanksgiving read-alouds? Check out this list of Thanksgiving - themed books.
12. Watch Traditional Dances of Indigenous People
16. Root Word "Thank"
See how many words students can list that have "thank" as the root word! Then, partner or group students up to compare lists. Can your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students find:
- thanking
- thanks
- thankful
- unthank
- thankless
- thankfully
- outthank
- unthankful
- thanksgiving
- thanklessness
- thankfulness
- thankworthy
- thanker
- thanked
17. Turkey's POV Writing
This fun Thanksgiving-themed writing prompt asks upper elementary students to write a story from the turkey's point of view - what problems might a turkey face before Thanksgiving?
Don't love this writing prompt? Check out these other Thanksgiving-themed writing prompts.
Other No Prep Ideas for November
18. Read Aloud From a Joke Book
19. Argue Opposing Viewpoints
Give students a debate topic and have them develop arguments for both sides. Extend this activity by introducing them to opinion writing using these helpful opinion writing sentence starters and paragraph frames.
You also might like this free point of view graphic organizer that allows students to develop both sides of an argument.
20. Around the Room Word Study
This fun activity is easily adaptable to any word study skill you want your students to review! After teaching or reviewing a specific spelling pattern or word study skill, have students walk around the room searching for words that fit that pattern or skill.
For example, have students look for:
- words with a silent letter
- words that have 4 syllables
- words with closed syllables
- words with a prefix or suffix
Check out more tips and ideas for this word study activity.
21. Illustrate Vocabulary Words
22. Free Main Idea Worksheets
23. Write & Pass
This is a fun way to get even your most reluctant students writing. Tell all of your students to start writing a story - but only let them write for a certain time period, like 4 minutes. Then, have them pass their story to a partner and have their partner continue the story for another 4 minutes. Then repeat!
When you are finished, have students read their stories to themselves or aloud to their groups for some giggles.
Check out these other ways to make writing more exciting for your reluctant writers.
24. 321 Exit Ticket
After a lesson, have students fill in a 321 exit ticket. Students write:
- 3 things they learned
- 2 things they found interesting
- 1 question they still have
You could have them write this on a blank sheet of paper or whiteboard, or print off one of these free 321 exit templates.
25. Main Idea Slideshow
26. 10 Word Summary
27. Parts of Speech Scavenger Hunt
After reviewing a specific part of speech, send students on a parts of speech scavenger hunt! Have them look for words on posters, anchor charts, or in books that are that specific part of speech.
Find more ideas for teaching and reviewing parts of speech here.
28. No E Paragraph
29. Copy a Paragraph
We spend time trying to improve the reading fluency of our upper elementary students, but not their writing fluency! In order to write well, students have to be comfortable writing.
For a quick, no prep time filler, have students copy a paragraph. You can read more about the benefits of building writing fluency and ideas for incorporating it into your classroom routine here.