posted by Jessica Lynette on School

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For school this week and next I am studying Thanksgiving with the boys. I have compiled the Thanksgiving lesson plan for the next two weeks to share with those that want to explain and do activities about Thanksgiving for kids.

What is Thanksgiving – explaining it to kids

I have the The Story of the Pilgrims (Dover History Coloring Book) and it is perfect for sharing what the history of thanksgiving is and why we celebrate it. At the beginning of the book they have this brief summary;

“Every November, many people eat a special meal; Thanksgiving dinner. In the early 1600s, some men, women, and children left England to be free. We call them Pilgrims. First they went to Holland. Then they sailed to America. Living throughout the land were the Indians, also called Native Americans. They showed the Pilgrims how to grow their own food. When the Pilgrims had enough to eat, they were very grateful to the Indians. They wanted to give thanks….”

There are then 29 pages to color that cover the Pilgrims adventure, with a sentence or two at the bottom of each page detailing the story. Over the next week we will spend a little bit of time reading and coloring through this book.

To aid in explaining the history of Thanksgiving I also have two copies of Cut & Assemble the “Mayflower”: A Full-Color Paper Model of the Reconstruction at Plimoth Plantation. It is a rather complex model so I may save the second book for next year rather than make one for each boy this year. I know the boys will enjoy making a model of the Mayflower and I will probably turn this into an entire family activity that we can work on either in the early morning or at dinner time, a little bit each day.

We also picked up a small collection of library books this weekend which may or may not be helpful – we got the last of the books they had on the subject of Thanksgiving – who knew everyone else would check them out two weeks ahead of time too?!?

Thanksgiving Coloring Sheets

I am quite happy with the coloring pages in The Story of the Pilgrims, however I did find some neat free thanksgiving coloring pages for kids that I will be using.

{This designed and available from June Pfaff Daley}

{Endless supply of free Thanksgiving coloring pages and worksheets from abcteach.com}

Crafts for Thanksgiving

Toilet paper roll craft pilgrim people - I have been saving our toilet paper rolls and we will make these cute toilet paper roll pilgrims and use them as puppets in our play as we reenact the first Thanksgiving story.  

{image from FamilyFun}

Turkey Candy Jar – I plan on making these with the boys and having them each chose someone to give it to and we’ll write things they are thankful for about the person (or family) they intend to gift this to on the turkey feathers.

{image and instructions from Kids and Glitter}

Other Thanksgiving Ideas

The Bowl Game – a Thanksgiving game for kids.
We found this game in one of our books and have played a couple of times. The book mentions that this is a game played by Indians and they may have taught the Pilgrims how to play.
You need six almonds, each one with one side marked with an “X”, a bowl and a collection of toothpicks.
Players sit in a circle and take turns tossing the almonds in the bowl and counting how many X’s are showing. The amount of X’s showing is the amount of toothpicks you then take. At the end of the predetermined amount of turns the winner is the person with the most toothpicks. Beans or seeds would also work in place of the almonds.

Recipes
We will be cooking a lot with pumpkin – we’ve discovered pumpkin yogurt {using our homemade yogurt from How to Make Yogurt} is delicious. Pumpkin oatmeal is iffy.

We tried our hand at making our own butter and may try a few other fun recipes.

These are the Thanksgiving themed books that were left for us at the library and I’m sure we’ll find more inspiration within their pages for activities to do.

Happy Thanksgiving!