A Thanksgiving Feast with a Dash of Christmas

Normally my days seem to fly by, but this week has been moving at a snails pace.  It could be that it gets dark at 5:00 now, which makes me think it is time for bed when the evening has just begun.  Or it could be that it is getting closer to the holidays and the kids are getting antsy (which means loud, extra silly, and forgetful), which means they drive me a little bit crazy some days, making the day last an eternity!  I am guessing it is a combination of the two!  No worries, next week is a 3 day week!

In preparation for Thanksgiving, we have been studying all about the Pilgrims and Indians.  Last week I read about the chores that pilgrim children had.

The Pilgrim children definitely had more chores than the kiddos nowadays!  Read for yourself!

My students basically have to clean their rooms and make their beds.  No fetching water, milking goats, cooking meals, harvesting grain, etc.

To educate ourselves about the Indians, we did a little reading from the Social Studies books about different Indian tribes.  We also watched the slideshow of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians on the Scholastic website.  To review what we learned, the kids did some writing in their Thanksgiving Books.

"The Mayflower is the ship can hold 102 Pilgrims."

"The Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower."

"The Native Americans hunted animals."

We aren't quite finished with our books yet.  I will show you the rest of the pages next week!  If you want the template for the book click here.  

The art teacher was absent this week, so I had to come up with something to do with the kiddos. Martha Stewart inspired me to make corn husk dolls, but it is near impossible to find corn husks in San Francisco, so I had to come up with something else.  Since we learned about Indians making canoes, or mishoons, out of trees, I thought it would be fun to make our own canoes for art.  Don't worry, we didn't cut down any trees.   These were paper canoes, with little Indians to row them.  Lacing the canoe helped work on their fine motor skills.  We listened to Spirit flute music while doing art which they thought was funny.  If you happen to have corn husks, maybe you can put these directions to use and make some dolls with your kids.

We also made these items during art this week!

I know it is still November, but we are only in school one week in December and I wanted to have the kids make some decorations for the school.  If we wait until December, nobody is going to see them!  For the trees, I gave the kids a tree template to cut out and then gave them odds and ends for decorations.  They loved the shiny stuff!  After they finished decorating their trees they wrote about them.  

"My tree is shiny.  My tree has a lot of ornaments.  My tree is beautiful.  My tree is green."

Their writing is really coming along.  We worked on syllables this week, so it was easier for them to sound out the longer words.  I was so proud of their writing!  It made my day, until I saw this. . .

  which was the cherry on top!  They can be a handful sometimes, but then they surprise you!

Tom Turkeys and the Mayflower

Merry Christmas!

Oh wait, I guess I am a little early :)  I was able to take a little break this past week to go and visit family in Miami.  While there, we took full advantage of the family time and put up a massive Christmas tree.  In case you were wondering, it took the entire day, but it was well worth it because it is gorgeous!

Ok, back to reality.  It is still November.  It is time to study Thanksgiving and turkeys, not Christmas.

While I was away, my boss was nice enough to teach my class.  She made some cute crafts with them to help decorate the school.  Take a look!

Indian corn made with a paper corn cutout and tissue paper

Colorful paper plate turkeys in the school's front window

I got this idea from Pinterest.  

Head on over to Happy Home Fairy for the full details on how to make it.

Origami turkey--the kids actually did this with the art teacher, so I have no idea how to make them.  Sorry!

Every November I give my kids a Tom Turkey project for homework.  They have a week to work on it and then they bring it back to school to share with the class.  I send home a turkey outline and the letter below.

I hung all of the turkeys on the bulletin board.  Can you guess what their disguises are?

It isn't all just fun and turkeys in November though.  We also study the first Thanksgiving, and learn about the Pilgrims and Indians.

We have been learning a lot about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower this week.  After reading about the Mayflower, we discussed the things we might need if we went on such a journey.  I gave each of the kiddos a suitcase, and told them to "pack it" with the items they would bring on the Mayflower.  They cut out the white paper and glued it inside the suitcase.    

They had to draw the items they would pack and then list them or write sentences to tell what they brought.

This is what she wrote: water, apple, carrot, skirt, pants, shirt, bottoms, a stuffed animal, my horsey blanket smells so good

 She didn't write the word, but she told me that the purple, red, and pink items towards the left are underwear.  She said she needed to make sure she always had a clean pair.  Smart thinking!  None of the other kids "packed" any underwear at all!

water and carrot and pumpkins and a hat and pants and shirt

 She worked so hard sounding out the words!  I didn't have the heart to tell her that pumpkins are going to make her suitcase too heavy.

I was very proud of them.  Not a single one of them suggested bringing an iPad, video game, or phone on the Mayflower.  They only "packed" necessities: food, water, clothes, etc.  

You may think all kids catch on quick and realize that electronics weren't around back then, but I have had kids in the past try to pack tvs in their suitcases for the Mayflower!  I didn't tell them they wouldn't get any channels out at sea!

If you want the suitcase printable for this activity you can head over to my TpT store.  There are also other fun writing activities included in the packet.

Scholastic is another great resource for Thanksgiving.  They have videos and slideshows about the Mayflower, Pilgrims, and Wampanoag Indians, that you can show your kiddos.  This is an awesome resource if you have a Smartboard or projector in your classroom!