Well, it’s that time of year again—the time when one of my local radio stations begins playing all Christmas music. And every time I accidentally click on the station, I yell, “No, no, no!” and frantically punch the buttons. Why? Because it isn’t time for Christmas yet. It’s not. We have Thanksgiving Day first. Sometimes I feel like Thanksgiving is just a little speed bump we roar over as we zoom our way to Christmas. That’s a sad way to treat a holiday that glories in the most perfect of foods—stuffing!
So let’s talk about Thanksgiving Day. What are you doing in your classroom to celebrate this holiday?
Pizza Feast with the Parents invited,. They provide the toppings and I make homemade crust. Each child makes their own personal pizza and of course turkey handprint cards.
On display will be the huge Thankful Tom Turkey I painted the turkey body and each child decorated a feather.
We read books about being thankful. After reading, students took turns stating what they are thankful for in their lives.
We happened to be covering patterns in math, so we painted each student’s thumb and palm brown, and the student had to pick 2 colors for the “feathers” (their fingers) to make an AB pattern for the turkey.
For Thanksgiving in my first grade classroom, we are currently working on informational writing, or “How to” writing. We tied it in with learning about Long Ago and Today. Long ago it was the children’s job to make the butter. We made butter and each of my students took home the butter they made to share with their parents. Then on Friday, we made bread. I bake my own bread so they got to experience seeing and touching the grains- Kamut and Red Wheat grains. Then, we milled the grains (I also have my own mill). We passed around some of the flour for the students to feel. Next we followed the recipe for making bread in the breadmachine. We continued on with the rest of our day as the machine did its job. When the bread was done, we each tasted a quarter slice of bread with freshly made butter (I made more butter earlier that morning). Finally, we had collaborated with another first grade class so they came back and we shared the bread and butter with them. This was an all-day experience but well worth it. Part of our social studies unit tied in with the Pilgrim and Native American families not having stores to go to in order to get what foods they need so they made their breads and grew/hunted their foods. Our kiddos loved it.