turkey trouble! a Thanksgiving story and more!
- Our Grand Lives
- 55 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Thursday, November 20, 2025
One week from today is THANKSGIVING DAY!
Is your Thanksgiving Checklist ready to go
and, more importantly,
have you decided which stretchy pants to wear on the big day?
For those of us here in the United States, Thanksgiving is only a week away,
so it’s a great time to be thinking about another question, too…
How will we keep our Littles entertained on Thanksgiving Day?
We’ve got a fun idea for you!
In today’s post, Laurie shares our November choice for
Our Monthly Story Time!
It’s a delightful story your Littles will giggle over and wonder about
and then Laurie has included two fun follow-up activities, too,
ones that will get their creative juices going!
Whether you are looking for a project to do in the days leading up to Thanksgiving
OR
one to keep your Littles busy and engaged on Turkey Day itself,
we've got you covered, so give our ideas a try!
It’s time to grab your own little turkeys, cuddle up
and get ready for a GRAND time
filled with stories, smiles and more silly Thanksgiving fun!
We ❤️ to read with our Littles!
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating… There’s no better gift we can give our Littles than sharing a love of reading with them! Research shows, over and over again, that reading to Littles of any age builds a strong foundation for language development, improves concentration, and builds both academic success and social emotional skills. Talking with Littles about the stories we read builds vocabulary and understanding and, you’ll be surprised, by how Littles will learn to love making predictions as they listen and read!
BOTTOM LINE?
Reading to our Littles fosters a lifelong love of learning!
YAY!!!
That’s the main reason we decided earlier this fall
to start a new monthly feature
of choosing a favorite children’s book and author to share here!
Today, we’ve got our fourth selection for you all!
As a reminder, we’ve shared the following four books so far!
(You’ll find links to each post below.)
THANKSGIVING presents a fabulous opportunity to
snuggle up with your Littles and a good book
READ ON, because
Laurie has the perfect book for you and your Littles to do just that!
And now, our choice for NOVEMBER….
This is an adorable story about a turkey who is trying to avoid the farmer who wants to make him his Thanksgiving dinner. To avoid the farmer, Turkey decides to dress up like the various animals on the farm and lots of silly fun soon follows!
After each disguise the animals find something wrong with it. The story continues with the same phrase on each page “Surely Farmer Jake wouldn’t eat a cow/horse/sheep/rooster, etc. for Thanksgiving….” until this page where Turkey desperately looks for inspiration…
Can you guess what Turkey comes up with?
This is the perfect place in the story to talk about prediction,
and using clues in the text to help make one.
Be sure you each share your predictions for what will happen next!
In the end, Turkey disguises himself as a pizza delivery man,
delivering a VEGGIE pizza to Farmer Jake’s family!.
I was so excited to sit down and read the story with Little D and Little P!
Then, of course, before we could start our follow up activities,
Little D had to “read” the bok to herself many times over!
Keep scrolling for more turkey fun!
NOTE: Before you scroll on for more turkey fun, we’ve included a Youtube reading of Turkey Trouble below. That way, if you don’t have access to the actual book (which you know by now is is always our preference) you can still introduce your Little(s) to this delightful story!
Now that we’ve met Turkey and followed his hilarious adventures,
I've got two fun activities to keep the giggles coming!
Each would be fun and fairly easy to prep and pull off during your family holiday gathering.
Or perhaps you’ll be visiting your Littles or they will be coming to you
for the long holiday weekend.
These activities would be equally fun to do then, too!
Try these activities to compliment Turkey and all his trouble!
Hide the Turkey!
We made some sweet simple turkeys out of a cardboard tube
(Little D had green feathers and Little P had orange.)
All you'd need would be a toilet paper roll or paper towel roll that you cut, construction paper, markers or crayons, scissors and glue! Then let your Littles (especially the older ones) get creative!
When they were done, I told the Littles that I would hide their turkeys
so our very own Farmer D and Farmer P could not find them.
I was never successful in hiding those turkeys!
Farmer D and Farmer P loved this game
and we played it over and over again!
They even hid the turkeys for each other!
Build a Turkey Hideout!
Then we were ready to move on to a more STEM centered activity,
one that would get their minds working!
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
STEM experiences can be quite engaging for Littles of all ages…
They foster curiosity and problem-solving
and you’ll often hear the Littles asking “why” and “how” repeatedly!
My Littles’ task?
I encouraged them to create a hiding place for their turkeys,
one where Farmer Grammy could not find them!
Little D (age 4) stuck to her trusty blocks as she created!
And Little P (age 2) hid her turkey as only a two-year-old would!!
Your Littles can have access to any materials you have available…
while toy building supplies work well,
so do plastic container, recycled shoeboxes, pieces of scrap wood,
paper cups, construction paper, tape and more!
That's half the fun - especially for older Littles - to see what they can come up with!
It was time for Farmer Grammy to check on the hideout!
After I checked Little D’s structure,
I declared it a success!
I could not see a single bit of Turkey hiding!
Before I retired, I did this activity with my kindergarten students, as well. It was a good activity for the day before Thanksgiving Break.
The kids had the freedom of the whole room to find building materials.
My para and I were very tough when it came to the rules for building the hideouts... Not a single sight of that turkey could be showing! If it did, it was back to the drawing board for that kindergartner, with lots of “Awwwws” and laughter that followed!
Yes, I could see through the cracks of the Lincoln Logs!
Back to the drawing board!
Keeping the Littles busy on Thanksgiving could feel a bit like trying to herd turkeys…
chaotic, a bit precarious and absolutely adorable!
Can’t you just imagine how proud your Littles might be,
showing off their Turkey Hideouts, surrounded by family and loved ones?
Being prepared with a story and an activity or two on Turkey Day
is a great way to guarantee a successful gathering for all involved…
Even Turkey!
Do you have a “kid friendly” activity you’ve found successful,
especially when it comes to entertaining Littles on Thanksgiving Day?
If so, or if you have any other ideas or insights for us,
PLEASE SHARE!
Feel free to comment at the end of this post!
You can also reach out to us directly at ourgrandlives@gmail.com!
THANK YOU!
Come back tomorrow,
when we’ll be back with another post in honor of Thanksgiving Day,
Talking Turkey...
Our Lats Minute Thanksgiving Faves!
We’ll talk last minute ideas for
turkey crafts, games, treats, jokes, moves and more…
Just in time for you and your own tiny turkeys to celebrate!
In fact, now would be a great time to share our site
with other GRANDS or anyone else who might enjoy our content and motto…
We’ve got lots of fun planned as the holiday season gets going!
We invite you to sign up to subscribe to our blog,
DON’T WORRY! We NEVER EVER share addresses
since we only contact you when we publish a new post!
And, of course, you can always find us
We’d love it if you stopped by or followed us there!
Who knew one turkey could work so hard just to avoid dinner? Turkey Trouble gives us laughs, disguises, and a whole new respect for quick-thinking poultry, right? Turkey perseveres and shows us all that when faced with a problem, it can help to think outside the box, try different solutions and not give up! When the last piece of pumpkin pie has been eaten and the dishes are done, that’s a valuable lesson for us all!
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