Thanksgiving Pilgrims and Indians

This week we read a few reader’s theaters on the Pilgrims and Squanto and the Indians. Here are a few puppets HERE I found to make to go along with the readings. We also usually do a few Scholastic News’ on the subject of the Pilgrims and Mayflower too.
  
These Social Studies books will show kids of today how much more we should appreciate what we have in our lives and how much easier they have it than the Sarah Morton’s of the time of the Pilgrims.

Great Social Studies BOOKS on Pilgrims
Sarah Morton’s Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl by Kate Waters
Samuel Eaton’s Day:  A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy by Kate Waters
Story of the First Thanksgiving, The by Elaine Raphael
Story of Thanksgiving, The by Nancy Skarmeas
First Thanksgiving, The by Linda Hayward
Thanksgiving Is… by Louise Borden (This is a good one for a writing project)
First Thanksgiving, The by Garnet Jackson
If You Sailed on the Mayflower by Ann McGovern
Story of the Pilgrims, The by Katharine Ross
Thanksgiving Day by  Gail Gibbons
Thanksgiving Pilgrims.jpg
Make up these finger puppets (BELOW) for the kids to color, cut out, and then sing this tune while they move them around and dance to the music. 

By the way, LOOK what I found at the Dollar Store!  Dancing SOLAR Pilgrims and a Turkey! Super Cute! They are solar powered so they dance to the light of a lamp. The kids loved them. 

Solar Turkeys I found at Dollar Tree….SO I put them on my kiddie table. 
The nearby lamp had them dancing the whole dinner through. We laughed and laughed at them! 
My grandkids loved them too. I’ll have to show them to my 2nd graders too! 


Oh Dear Pilgrims (Oh Susannah Tune)
Oh they left their homes in England and prepared to take a trip.
And they climbed aboard the Mayflower and sailed upon that ship.
The year was 1620 on a cold November Day
By the shores of Massachusetts they arrived in Plymouth Bay.
Oh Dear Pilgrims
Did seek to worship free
So you came here to America for Opportunity!
The first year was the hardest, but your neighbors all helped out
They met Native Americans with Squanto as their scout.
They helped the Pilgrims plant their crops, of pumpkins beans and corn.

They all shared in a harvest feast and Thanksgiving Day was born. 

You could also do the Turkey Trot. (Hokey Pokey with different words) 

Turkey
Turkey Trot(Tune:  Hokey Pokey)
You put your right wing in.
You put your right wing out.
You put your right wing in,
and you shake it all about.
You do the turkey trot
and you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!
Additional verses:
Left wing,
Drumsticks,
Stuffing (Stomach)
Wattle (Head)
Tail Feathers (Bottom)
Turkey Body


A fun choral reading about what kinds of foods they ate on Thanksgiving is HERE at Scripts for Schools. Another activity I did last year was making Indian girls and boys and writing about what their day was like. Check them out. Another puppet idea I found with BOTH pilgrims AND Indian boys and girls was Here at Making Learning Fun. 

Native American children and how they worked and played….we did these last year. This year we ran out of time since we only have a day and a half this week before our Thanksgiving 3 day break. Woo Hoo! 
We decorated them with fringe on the paper and symbols and chevrons and lots of dots and triangles to make them look like Indian pictograms. 

 

Scholastic has a few good lesson plans for K-2 and a printable compare and contrast HERE. Just scroll down to the bottom for Thanksgiving Then and Thanksgiving Now sheet. We did this just as a whole class brainstorm. Another one to use for individual students is this flip book HERE from Lakeshore Learning. 

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