Easy Ways to Use Turkey Trouble in the Classroom

Turkey Trouble

Have you read Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano? I was very late to the game with this book, but once I finally sat down and read it, I was a fan! And being a fan, for me, means finding some way to work it into my curriculum.

I managed to find two ways to use Turkey Trouble in the classroom. The first involves a turkey disguise craft and several writing activities, while the second uses the story to practice sentence-level writing skills.

Turkey Trouble Disguise Craft and Writing Prompts

This is one of those activities that has evolved over the years!

I started with a simple, one-page writing activity where students could draw a turkey in disguise and complete a short writing prompt.

Later, I decided to make the activity a little more hands-on. Students used construction paper to create their own disguised turkeys and then completed a writing prompt to go along with their creations.

Then, one year, I turned it into a riddle activity. Students created disguises for their turkeys, and their classmates had to guess what each turkey was pretending to be.

And finally, I added what is probably my favorite activity of the bunch! This one is a bit more involved.

Imagine that Turkey’s plan to disguise himself from Farmer Jake didn’t work, and he had to come up with an entirely different plan. What would he do? How would he pull it off? And most importantly, would his plan work and keep him safe until next Thanksgiving?

Students get to come up with their own ideas, plan out what happens, and write a story about Turkey’s next attempt to stay safe.

💚 Grab Turkey Trouble Disguise Craft and Writing Prompts from TPT

Turkey Trouble Sentence Level Writing Skills Activities

Over the past few years, we’ve been focusing a lot on sentence-level writing skills in the classroom. We’ve worked on everything from identifying sentences and fragments to exploring different types of sentences, using question words, expanding sentences, and eventually creating single-paragraph outlines.

These skills are so important for young writers, and I’ve found that one of the best ways to teach and practice them is to work them into whatever we’re already learning about.

Well, we were going to read Turkey Trouble anyway, so why not use it to practice some of these skills?

I created a collection of sentence-level activities to use after reading the book. Students practiced different writing skills using the characters, events, and sentences from the story. Once we’d finished those activities, we moved on to the crafts and creative writing projects I described above.

Turkey Trouble sentence level skills activities

💚 Grab Turkey Trouble Sentence Level Writing Skills on TPT

FREE Writing Printable

Looking for a quick follow-up activity for Turkey Trouble? Students can draw their own turkey disguise and complete the prompt about how they’ll fool Farmer Jake.