Thanksgiving Learning

For the week before Thanksgiving, children read, re-read and learned to retell with pictures then without the story of the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving. To bring the story to life toward the end of the week, after each had significant experience with the story sequence and details of the events, we acted it out! Taking time to role play, recall what happened when and with/to who is important to building a foundation for strong literacy comprehension - we understand what we read! Of course, acting out an event in literature is incredibly fun too!

Along with learning about the Pilgrim's first thanksgiving, our friends have been making connections to their own celebrations. Many children have been sharing stories about spending time with cousins and grandparents in years past and getting ready for the upcoming celebration. We've been exploring various traditions different families have at home and thinking about what we look forward to this year. As we continue to explore the difference between fiction and nonfiction, students are beginning to make a clear distinction - especially when the turkey's dress up and start to run away from thanksgiving dinner. We've read some true stories about pilgrims and the first thanksgiving but have also mixed in a few of my favorite stories involving turkey shenanigans!  

Last Tuesday, students learned about life as a pilgrim child.  They learned to ask questions while reading a text about a pilgrim girl.  In this narrative, we learned how the children would work hard to help cook, so we decided to do a little cooking ourselves.  Following a recipe, students read and mixed up the ingredients for some tasty cornbread.  Be sure to ask your child about how the butter was created (see video on next post!)