Thanksgiving Curricula

We're just nine days from Thanksgiving which means a few plans need to be made. We'll be spending the day with my husband's side of the family. I'm to bring pies and mashed potatoes. More about my Thanksgiving food contributions to come in another post. For today, I'd like to share how Lou learned about the first Thanksgiving and the spirit of thankfulness. Have you read Thanksgiving at the Tappletons'? It's a cute story, pointing out that family is the greatest part of Thanksgiving. See, each family member is in charge of a different food for the traditional meal. And each person has their own reason as to why the food didn't make it to the table. Needless to say, the only thing traditional about their Thanksgiving dinner is that it's spent with family. Next I read aloud, The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving. This is a nice book filled with info about the Mayflower, pilgrims, and the first year at Plymouth. Then armed with a pile of supplies including: paper, colored pencils, scissors, glue, old November magazines, and an atlas, she went to town making a poster.

We divided her poster into fourths. On the top left is a drawing of the Mayflower. Do you notice the perspective line? My knowledge of art is improving, thanks to Art Projects For Kids. The explanations there are really helping me to be a better art teacher for my kids. Top right are her drawings of a pilgrim and indian. She struggled with this quite a bit. She was so frustrated with trying to get the right proportion for her pilgrim woman that Lee offered lots of help with the indian. In the bottom left quadrant she searched through magazines looking for traditional Thanksgiving dinner foods and in the bottom right is a tracing of the lower 48 states with Plymouth labeled.

We have plans to make a Thanksgiving garland of some sort tomorrow. I'm thinking we'll cut out leaves from construction paper and then string them along a length of twine. Each night at dinner we'll all write something we are thankful for on a leaf. We'll do this through the month of November. I have a couple more ideas on celebrating Thanksgiving but those'll have to wait; I'm feeling a little under the weather today and best be getting to bed.