This year, besides our thankful chart, we focused a little bit more on the history of Thanksgiving -- you know, Pilgrims and Indians and all that. It's fun that the kids are getting older and able to understand and remember some of these things!
Levi had two lessons on Thanksgiving in his history curriculum, but we went beyond that and used this kindergarden unit on the History of Thanksgiving as well. (It's kind of hard to see the link on this page; it's in pink, sandwiched between two rows of social media links.) The unit includes books (we got two from the library and didn't worry about the others), links to videos on scholastic.com (which the boys loved watching), craft ideas (which we never got to), and more. I highly recommend it, and will be watching this blog for future units! (Actually, that's not 100% accurate. I get e-mails from freehomeschooldeals.com, and immediately download anything that looks like it might be useful some day. It's been a fantastic resource for things like this, and totally worth the bazillion e-mails I have in my inbox.)
My favorite activity out of the unit was this Thanksgiving vocabulary mini book. Levi really enjoyed drawing and coloring pictures to go along with the sentences on each page, and it was fun to take it to Grandma's and Grandpa's house to show off what we learned. Levi, Owen and I also learned a little Thanksgiving-history song (to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?"), included in the unit, to sing for our family after the big meal! (We sang all of the silly turkey songs we know, too.) Even Silas has been walking around for days singing, "They sailed on the Mayflower, the Mayflower, the Mayflower . . . ."
Apart from the unit, we studied turkeys for our science animal and did this handprint turkey craft. (I modified it a bit from that link, to use what we had on hand and what I thought would be simplest in the moment.)
Levi had two lessons on Thanksgiving in his history curriculum, but we went beyond that and used this kindergarden unit on the History of Thanksgiving as well. (It's kind of hard to see the link on this page; it's in pink, sandwiched between two rows of social media links.) The unit includes books (we got two from the library and didn't worry about the others), links to videos on scholastic.com (which the boys loved watching), craft ideas (which we never got to), and more. I highly recommend it, and will be watching this blog for future units! (Actually, that's not 100% accurate. I get e-mails from freehomeschooldeals.com, and immediately download anything that looks like it might be useful some day. It's been a fantastic resource for things like this, and totally worth the bazillion e-mails I have in my inbox.)
My favorite activity out of the unit was this Thanksgiving vocabulary mini book. Levi really enjoyed drawing and coloring pictures to go along with the sentences on each page, and it was fun to take it to Grandma's and Grandpa's house to show off what we learned. Levi, Owen and I also learned a little Thanksgiving-history song (to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?"), included in the unit, to sing for our family after the big meal! (We sang all of the silly turkey songs we know, too.) Even Silas has been walking around for days singing, "They sailed on the Mayflower, the Mayflower, the Mayflower . . . ."
Apart from the unit, we studied turkeys for our science animal and did this handprint turkey craft. (I modified it a bit from that link, to use what we had on hand and what I thought would be simplest in the moment.)
My mom is really good about having activities on hand for the boys to do when we go to her house for holidays, and this was no exception. Levi and Owen made Indian headbands, read Thanksgiving books from the library, made handprint turkeys on the paper tablecloth, and used some Thanksgiving-related stampers (pumpkins, Pilgrims, turkeys, etc.) until they had no ink left.
One little Indian reads a book . . .
. . . while the other builds with Kapla blocks.
(Can't say enough good things about Kapla blocks, by the way.
They are PERFECT for a design-minded kid like Owen.)
Gobble gobble!
Toby, 10.5 months.
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