The Night Before Thanksgiving Book Companion November PreK K 1st 2nd Sped

About this resource

One theme, one week. Read the same book every day at circle time — a family bakes a pie, watches

the parade on TV, and gets excited for bed the night before Thanksgiving — then pull one simple

activity after the read-aloud each day: sort kitchen things, count pies, find the letter, decide what

you do the night before a holiday, then build a craft of a cozy Thanksgiving Eve bedroom. Every

student page has one short instruction with a picture, so a paraprofessional can run the room from it

too.

This week pairs with **The Night Before Thanksgiving by Natasha Wing** (or any story about a family

getting ready for a holiday that you already have). Not affiliated with the author or publisher. You

need your own copy of the book; nothing from it is reproduced here, and every picture in the file is

our own drawing or a licensed picture set, not the book's artwork.

This is a different week than our Thanksgiving Dinner companion ("This Is the Turkey" by Abby

Levine), already in the store: that week is the family MEAL itself (setting the table, the plate of

food). This week is the EVENING BEFORE — cooking, the parade, and bedtime — with its own core word,

letter words, and a different craft. The two use different vocabulary and can be used in the same

unit together or on their own.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (57 pages)

• 1 Start Here week plan: what to do after the read-aloud each day, plus what else it practices
• 1 book-and-words page naming the read-aloud, an original circle-time chant ("The Night Before,"

written for this unit — no song or story text is reprinted), and the 9 circle-time vocabulary words

• 9 smartboard slides for whole-group circle time on a projector or interactive board: the cover art,

name the pictures, sort, count (3 slides), the letter hunt, the life skill in order, and the core

word

• 9 circle-time vocabulary cards to cut out and use at the carpet (turkey, pie, corn, pot, spoon,

balloon, television, bed, house)

• Day 1, Sort (kitchen thing or not?), at 3 levels: Level 1 errorless matching, Level 2 the standard

two-group sort, Level 3 a third group added (kitchen thing, parade thing, or bedtime thing) — 10

cut-and-glue pieces on every level

• Day 2, Count the pies, at 3 levels: Levels 1 and 2 count sets of 1 to 5 with a 5-piece numeral strip

to cut and glue; Level 3 counts sets of 6 to 10 and writes the number, no cutting

• Day 3, Letter P, at 3 levels: Level 1 glues 5 matching P's, Level 2 finds P among 10 look-alike

letters, Level 3 says 10 pictures aloud and glues the 5 that start with the /p/ sound

• Writing, at 3 levels: Level 1 traces the big letters, Level 2 traces letters and the word "pie,"

Level 3 writes the letters and the word independently on primary lines

• Day 4, a life-skill sequencing page ("What do you do the night before Thanksgiving?"): 5 picture

pieces (4 real steps — help cook, watch the parade, have a bedtime snack, go to bed —

first/next/then/last, plus 1 that does not belong)

• Day 5, a book craft: color and cut a 6-piece Thanksgiving Eve bedroom scene (a big bed, a pillow, a

balloon, a television, a popcorn bowl, and a moon — every piece named in the page's own glue

instruction, every cut a straight dashed rectangle) and glue it into a bedroom coloring scene

• 2 fine motor pages: a tracing-paths page (4 dashed paths from the turkey to the pie: straight, wave,

zigzag, loops) and a cutting-practice page (4 strips, easiest first)

• 4 core-word pages for the word of the week, "cook": a big word card for the talker or core board, a

12-word find-and-circle grid (6 of the 12 are the target word), an oven to color, and 10 cooking

foods to cut out and glue around it

• 1 "Who Did What This Week" data page (one row per student, a prompt-level code for each day — handy

for IEP notes and progress reports)

• 1 family letter to send home on Day 1
• 1 credits page (art and font licenses)
• Ink-saver twins of 19 picture-based student pages (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only)

in outline art for a photocopier, so the color pages above are optional, not required

Three Levels On Every Academic Task

Sort, count, letters and writing each come in three levels, marked with a small shape instead of a

number so children don't compare theirs to a neighbor's: a circle for starting (errorless matching), a

square for building (the standard task), a triangle for ready for more (a real step up — a third sort

group, counting 6 to 10 with writing, or beginning sounds).

Cutting Built For Small Hands

Every cutting page carries 5 or more pieces, lined up edge to edge so each cut is one straight line.

Pre-cut them yourself for students who are not cutting independently yet.

Color Or Ink-Saver

Print the color pages, or use the ink-saver twins at the back on a photocopier — most picture-based

student pages have both (the craft and pure-coloring pages are color-only by design).

Who This Is For

Any teacher starting a self-contained preschool or early childhood special education classroom who

wants a whole week of circle time, ready to pull and go: one theme, a different simple activity every

day.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A print-and-go weekly theme unit built around a family's Thanksgiving-eve evening. It is not a claim

about any student's age or rate of progress, and it does not reproduce any book, its text, or its

artwork — only our own bed, oven, pot and other pieces are drawn here.