Thanksgiving
The month of November is such a gift! There are so many beautiful things to weave into your teaching this month that will enrich and excite your students. In fact, I usually don’t have time for all the things I wish I could teach in this bounteous month!
Native American Heritage
I used to teach in an area where a great deal of my students were members of the ShoBan tribe. November was the perfect time to celebrate these student’s culture and educate their peers. As part of the learning, a group of dancers came and performed for us. The students watched with wide eyes and large smiles. As they were swept up in the romantics of it, one little girl raised her hand and said, “It would be so fun to be an Indian.” I smiled and told her, “You are, honey!”
If you don’t have any Native American children in your class, November might be a great time to teach your students about Indigenous people in your area. Some children grow up with the mistaken impression that Native Americans are a group of people who only existed in the past and are surprised to learn that that is not the case! Showing students videos of present day Native American children and reading books by Indigenous authors, can help children have a more accurate picture.
The First Thanksgiving
Teaching about the first Thanksgiving is a great way to build social studies concepts in your classroom, but it is important to teach in ways that do not perpetuate harmful stereotypes about Indigenous people. The Native American Student Services department of Oklahoma City Public Schools has prepared an awesome booklet full of great ideas for teaching about Native American culture respectfully. You can find it here.
According to Dr. Star Yellowfish, who wrote the Oklahoma City plans, the most important lesson that young children can learn from the first Thanksgiving feast is “How two extremely different communities worked together to coexist and how we can learn from that… With younger children, you can discuss how Wapanoag and English leaders were at the table for three days talking about how they were going to interact” (Native educators say Thanksgiving lessons can be accurate, respectful, and still fun—here’s how. neaedjustice.org).
Thanksgiving is a great time to teach students about problem solving, community, and learning to get along with those who are different from us. I also love to incorporate a Thanksgiving theme into my math and literacy instruction, like in the game Hop To It from our Thanksgiving unit.
Hop To It Alphabet
Objective: Identifying letters and sounds of the alphabet.
Common Core RF.K.1: Recognize and name all upper-and lowercase letters of the alphabet.
Rationale: The ability to recognize the letters and sounds of the alphabet is a key element in the reading process.
Materials: Hop To It game board (one for each player), alphabet cards (lowercase and/or uppercase), dice, game markers, container (bag, box, bowl). For durability, run the gameboards and alphabet cards on cardstock and laminate. Cut the alphabet cards apart and place in the container.
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Note: Play two games simultaneously if possible. Divide the students into two groups. Have one student from each group draw an alphabet card and name it. Have a number die available for each group so two students can shake and move on their game boards at the same time, also.
Give each player a game board and a game marker. Place the container of cards in the middle of the group.
The frogs are on their way to Thanksgiving dinner. Help them arrive at the feast before the celebration is over! When it is your turn, draw a card and name the letter on it. If you can name the letter, you can shake the die and move your game marker. If you land on a pie, you can take another turn right away.
_______________, you can begin. Draw a card. What letter is on your card? Wait for student response. If the student does not name the letter after a few seconds, allow another student to whisper it to him/her. Offer your assistance only if no one knows the answer.
Do you know the sound for the letter ________ ? If the student does not know the sound, immediately name the sound and have him/her repeat it. The sound for the letter ______ is ________. Let’s say that together: _______ says _______.
Shake the die. What number do you see? You can move that many spaces.
While the player moves his/her game marker, have the next student draw a card and name the letter on it. Always make sure the student has time to try to identify the letter before help is offered. After the letter is identified, ask the student to name the letter sound. If he/she does not know the sound, immediately provide it for the student.
Keep playing until all students reach the end of the game. If the game is not over when the time is up, the student closest to the finish wins the game. If you have time at the end of the game, use the cards as flashcards and identify the letters and sounds. Then, play again if time permits.
Gratitude
Teaching young children the art of gratitude can be difficult, especially when children are naturally egocentric, but nurturing this character trait will certainly pay off.
According to Dr. Robert A. Emmons of the University of California, genuine gratitude is the key to living a happy and fulfilling life. Dr. Emmons has found through his studies that practicing gratitude can increase happiness level by around 25%. He also mentions that gratitude increases creativity and productivity.
I love the simple song from my childhood, "I think the World is Glorious." Each time I am feeling down or a little less grateful, I sing this little song over in my brain as a reminder of gratitude. For some ideas on how to teach children about gratitude, find some teaching tips here.
Feasting!
According to history professor Robert Tracy McKenzie, “Neither the Pilgrims nor the Wampanoag considered that now famous gathering a Thanksgiving celebration. To them, it was a harvest festival. A true Thanksgiving was a solemn, holy day set apart for prayer and praise in church, not an outdoor party centered on military drills and barbecue. What's more, for nearly three centuries afterward, few Americans outside New England linked our national Thanksgiving holiday to a tradition supposedly begun in 1621. When President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first national autumn Thanksgiving in 1863, he focused exclusively on contemporary events and ignored the past entirely. For the rest of the 19th century, school history textbooks rarely referred to the Pilgrims or the ‘first Thanksgiving’” (Does Thanksgiving Even Belong In Schools). This means that you can have an amazing Thanksgiving experience in your classroom, even if you don’t ever mention the Pilgrims or the Wampanoag. In my classroom, we do a “Family Feast” where we each bring a food item that is special to our family to share. One of my coworkers reads “Stone Soup” to the children and talks about how each child in the room is a special part of the classroom community. Each child then adds a can of food that they brought from home (canned chicken, carrots, chili, corn, etc) to a crockpot. When the food is warm they all eat it together. The amazing part about the Thanksgiving holiday are those things that we all share in common: family and feasting! Gather your students together at the end of the month for a time of celebration and food, in whatever way fits your community of children best!
