Turkey In the Straw

In the next lesson Mrs Nuzman wanted to focus on Social Studies. Since it was right before Thanksgiving we decided to teach the kids Turkey in the Straw. Previously the children had learned the words for the chorus of the song.

We reviewed those words and then talked about how the children listened to music and what they did for entertainment. Then we talked about how in historically people would have to sing and play their own music instead of being able to listen to an iPod. And for entertainment people would all learn dances and then dance to the live music.


Then they all got up and we learned a modified version of the Virginia Reel. We started using walking. As they got better at the dance, I challenged them to really listen to the music and make sure they were clapping on the right counts. Once they had that down we changed the skipping to walking.

It was a lot of fun because as part of the dance we had 16 counts where the head couple got to do their best turkey walk impression down the middle of the two lines. This was a really exciting part of the lesson. It was fun to see the students try to think of new ways they could do their turkey walk as we challenged them to look for new ways. To up the stakes we had Mrs. Musil, who was observing that day, pick a few of the best turkey walkers.

We reviewed what we had discussed at the beginning and then the students loved it so much they asked if they could do the dance two more times.