Please share!
I just spent about 2 hours organizing our plans for our Thanksgiving Unit. I thought I would share what books, videos, websites, and lapbooking ideas we’ll be using this year. Our primary focus will be on the history of Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Native Americans, with other fun thrown in (what’s Thanksgiving without a turkey craft, right?). We’ll be spending almost 2 weeks on this unit, so as not to feel rushed. I think it’s going to be a blast!
Living Books: all of our studies begin with Living books. Here’s our book list for this study:
The Story of the Pilgrims by H.L. Ross
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin
If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern
A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael Rosen
Videos: Ben loves videos, so they often really bring home the ideas in a fun way for him. Here are 3 videos we were able to find at our library:
Lapbooking/Notebooking: we are using mostly lapbooking components this year to create notebooks. So it’s sort of a combination of lapbooking and notebooking. There are several resources here that we’ll pick and choose from to add to our notebook:
Thanksgiving Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central
Thanksgiving Lapbook from Live and Learn Press (you can receive this lapbook for FREE by joining their yahoo group)
Thanksgiving Interactive Notebook from Lilliput Station (another FREE lapbook, just a few things, but very cute!)
Cranberry Thanksgiving Lapbook from Homeschool Share (everything is always FREE at HSS!)
History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony by Evan Moor
History Pockets: Colonial America by Evan Moor
Colonial America by Scholastic
Crafts and Cooking: Handprint turkeys, Pilgrim Hat cookies, and Fishbowl Pumpkin luminary, not to mention yummy Cranberry Bread!
Thanksgiving Crafts Video from Expert Village–this is a wonderful resource with video instructions for making a Thanksgiving placemat, pinecone turkey, Pilgrim place holder, and table centerpiece!
All New Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross
Paper Handprint Turkey from Kaboose
Fishbowl Pumpkin Luminary I think this will be a cute centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table. We’ll do a design that doesn’t look so much like Halloween though.
Cranberry Bread (from the book, Cranberry Thanksgiving) we read this book and make this bread every Thanksgiving.
Pilgrim Hat Cookies these are soooo cute and sound really yummy!
I almost forgot to mention, we’ll be starting our unit with a field trip to a local nature preserve. There we will be learning about Native Americans, including language, culture, music, dance, games, hunting and tracking. Doesn’t that sound incredible?!!?
Please share!
