mealtime madness monday: a thanksgiving treat (from my second graders)

At school, the students have been working on "retelling" details from books they've read.  To organize their information they are to use the time order words first, next, then, last, or in the beginning, in the middle and at the end....

They are doing the same sequencing practice to organize their writing.

Lucky for me erica you I (christy) had them practice on a traditional American Thanksgiving recipe:  How to Cook a Turkey.  A colleague of mine created this fantastic 3-D paper turkey and stuck it on a wall in our second grade hallway as a "table centerpiece" for all the student recipes.

Kindergarteners, First Graders and Second Graders truly have no idea what goes into a turkey or how it gets cooked.  But they sure had fun trying to figure it out and writing it all down (and, let's be honest, we had some fun listening, watching and reading right along with them!)

(I'm dedicating this post to Sue, the colleague I mentioned, without whom I would be incredibly lonely in our hallway and who also, btw, was one of my very first alpha readers for my first MS, Solstice, and its only editor.  AND, most importantly, the whole turkey thing was her idea!)

Here are a few recipes from the students:

And here's a recipe I love and maybe you'll get a chance to make and love, too!

Creamy Cucumber & Tomato Salad
(got this from my mother-in-law-yummy!)

slice up 4-6 cucumbers
cube up 1- 2 tomatoes

mix into above ingredients:
1 cup of mayonnaise
1/4 cup of sugar (little more if you like it sweeter, )
4 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. of dill weed ( to your taste)
1/2 tsp. of parsley flakes

Simple and easy to make!

Happy Thanksgiving Week to you all (even if you don't celebrate it!).  (And good luck to all our shoppers and Nanoers, too!)