Thanksgiving – Preschool Quickie

So do you like my cheesy thumbnail photo above?! 🙂  I’ve had some late nights free lately with Ryan working and out of town, so I’ve been playing around a lot.  I love it so much I might have to start making them for all my creative posts… haha! But aaaaaaaaanyway…  I’ll get on with it.

Since Thanksgiving is only about a week away, I wanted to formally sorta kinda write up my plan for a quick lesson for the boys this year.  If I don’t write it up, I know I will forget some great ideas.  It’s been a busy month with illnesses and an overworked husband who has been MIA in the helping-with-kids department, and time just slipped away from me.  I’m looking forward to a calmer week where we can work on some fun projects and take time to breathe and be thankful for the many blessing inn our lives.

The activities I’m planning this week are loosely based on the books we have been reading since the beginning of November.

Books:

Thanksgiving is For Giving Thanks, by Margaret Sutherland – helps give them the concept of being thankful for the things in our daily life.

‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, by Dav Pilkey – A hilarious story (written like ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas) of a group of children who rescue 8 turkeys from their Thanksgiving fate.  A good one for vegetarian or vegan families!

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims, by G.G. Hennessy – This is a wonderful book for so many reasons.  We can sing the words to the tune of “Three Little Indians”, and we can read through it and learn something new on every page.  This book is full of information on the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians, from the way they farmed to their celebratory feast.

Pilgrim Cat, by Carol Antoinette Peacock – This book is probably best for a slightly older age group than my boys, but we actually are really enjoying it.  It is the story of a cat who hopped aboard the Mayflower and befriended a pilgrim girl.  It tells the whole story of their voyage, landing, and establishment in Plymouth – seasickness, illness and death, meeting and learning from the Wampanoag’s, and the first Thanksgiving – through the eyes of this young girl and her cat.  When reading this book to Lucas (almost 4 yrs) we skip some of the text and talk about the pictures to keep him engaged.  He loves it, and requests this book regularly.

Cooking/Food

Make Indian corn bread

Roast Pumpkins for pie, and actually make pie!

Pumpkin Donuts -gluten free and Vegan

Activities and Crafts

Talk about how the Pilgrims learned to plant corn and squash from the Indians in order to have food for survival.  Plant some winter veggies in our own garden.

Make corn prints – Use corn on the cob as a paint roller/stamper and decorate our own construction paper corn stalks.

Search online for some videos of corn harvesting.  Talk about the differences between the way the Indians harvested vs. the way we do it now.

Cut out and decorate construction paper leaves, turkeys, etc. and write on each one something we are thankful for.  Decorate part of the kitchen wall with them so that we can read them at meal time.

Try one of these fun Thanksgiving craft ideas from Family Fun Magazine

Thanksgiving craft kits from Michael’s.

Bringing it all together

I am really trying to make a point to make sure Lucas (Nathan is too young still) really understands the meaning of the holidays this year.  We get so wrapped up in cooking the meal, visiting family, and checking the newspaper for black friday sales, that it is easy to forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving – to be thankful for the many blessings in our life: friends and family that support us, strangers who show us kindness, a safe and sturdy roof over our heads, good food, good health, and a beautiful country to live in with endless opportunities.  I sure am thankful for the many, many blessings in my life.  I want to pass this on to my boys.