Turkey Trot Blog Hop

Welcome to “The Chalkies” Turkey Trot! We hope you enjoy a jog through our blogs gobbling up freebies, ideas, and recipes for some holiday joy!

We have a new blog name!  We switched out the word "Primary" for "Elementary". We want to meet the needs of any teacher K-6. Our blog has been thoughtfully designed to help you find what YOU need for YOUR classroom level!

I love those grade level tabs {seen above} that help me grab what I need. This trot will also take you through the grade level blogs of your choice. After you finish the hop with the grade level of your choice, you might want to go through the other hop to see what kind of goodies are there, too! Many of the ideas can be used for any grade level. ;)

We hope you enjoy this little meal from appetizer to dessert!

For a little appetizer to get us started, I thought I'd share something from my Gingerbread Literacy Pack. This thing is loaded with deliciously-engaging activities. I'm telling ya, the gingerbread theme catches everyone's attention. Kids love these! They are not any different or more special than the next thing, but the cute little gingerbread people just make learning more fun. Ha! To see more of this unit, click here. But don't forget to come back and finish this hop. :)

You can download this freebie here.

Now to brighten your holidays with a quick and easy idea. We are always looking for ways to motivate our students, keep learning interesting and fun, but also manage the craziness. The holidays can get crazy. It's so fun and I always look forward to it, but let's face it, the kids can get a little too excited sometimes. :) Here's an idea to reward good classroom behavior:

Have your class work together to retell a story by having good behavior. Set out the parts of your favorite story. Here, I used Whimsy Workshop's adorable clipart, but you could also just have your students draw these cards. (That way you could do for any story.) When you want to reward the class for great (or "sweet") behavior, add a story card to the story board. Call on a student to choose which card goes next. This way, you are reinforcing sequencing. When you fill up the chart, you could give the class some sort of reward. Now, mind you a reward can be as simple as an extra recess. It could be a small gingerbread cookie. You could even be a youtube Gingerbread "movie". If you search "Gingerbread" on youtube, a bunch comes up. Mostly there are people reading the book but for some reason this feels more special, right? Sort of a movie? The reward can be as big or tiny as you want. The point is to get them working together to build the story.

I also studied Jan Brett every winter. You could do this with that story too. 

Download this idea with the template here. 
Note: The clip art does not come with this. You can buy the gingerbread clip art here. Like I said earlier, you could also draw it though. :)





I know this barely counts as dessert, but I love coffee, so it counts for me! I am a daily coffee with light cream gal, but those darn seasonal drinks get me every time. I have no self discipline. I just have to have them. They just make me happy to drink them. Well, that is, until this year when they started giving me stomach aches. Aging isn't pretty. My stomach is getting so sensitive! So after about four failed attempts to drink my favorite latte, I thought I'd do the sensible thing- I googled it. Ha! I know the sensible thing would be to save money and just not buy them. But that's not very fall-tastic is it? I came across this fabulous recipe for homemade pumpkin spice lattes. Apparently I wasn't the only one with the stomach issues... So I made it.

Perfection. It was so so yummy!

It really wasn't that hard either.  You pretty much brew some coffee or if you have a fancy espresso machine that's probably better. On the stove you basically mix pumpkin, some spices, some sugar and some milk. Heat it and put it in the blender for that frothy feel.  Pour it into a cup with some coffee and you've got yourself some (almost) guilt-free, homemade, real pumpkin spice latte. 

Here is the entire recipe and the source of my newfound happiness:

It's from The Kitchn

Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte Recipe PIN

Let's not judge how much nicer this person's latte looks. ;) This is downright beautiful. I opted not to add the whip cream this time, but I will next time! 

This would be perfect on Thanksgiving or for any party you are hosting. The recipe makes enough for a few lattes. It's quick and easy! Impress your guests with this drink before or after a meal.

If you are looking for more products to fill you up for the next few months, check out these winter related products:

These are some of my staples all year long!  Click here to see these.

These products will be 30% off today!

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