Our Thanksgiving Feast

Our Thanksgiving Celebration included:

Friends and Toys: Playing with Fisher Price Little People Village, Linking Blocks, Emergency Vehicles, and Baby Dolls.

The boys enjoyed noisy vehicles.
We read the poem, On Thanksgiving Day, by Rochelle Nielsen-Barshun and talked about how they too could help their families at home in small ways.

On Thanksgiving Day
By Rochelle Nielsen-Barsuhn
I put rolls in a basket,
crisp and warm,
stirred the gravy,
buttered the corn.
I watched the turkey
cook golden brown.
I mashed the potatoes
while Mom sat down.
In fact,
I was such a big help today
that before we bowed our heads to pray,
Mom whispered, "I'm thankful for you."

We talked about following a recipe (again) and got out our ingredients.
We enjoyed making Marie Calendar's Corn-meal Muffins.

We learned how to use two spoons to drop the sticky batter into the paper cups.

FUN!

We reviewed the First Thanksgiving with these pictures (colored by my daughters). You can find and print them out them here (click on the purple link) or here: http://printables.scholastic.com/printables/detail/?id=28485

Indian Corn helped save the Pilgrims after their first crops did not grow. Samoset, Chief of the Massasoit Indians, and Squanto, an Indian who had traveled to England and spoke English well, taught the Pilgrims many things and helped them survive after the first harsh winter*. (Some credit him and the Indians for saving the Pilgrims and being sent by Heaven). Squanto taught them how to tap the maple trees for sap, differentiate plants were poisonous and which had medicinal powers, and how to plant the Indian corn by heaping the earth into low mounds with several seeds and fish in each mound. The decaying fish fertilized the corn. He also taught them to plant other crops with the corn.
*Over half of the 102 Pilgrims died the first Winter in America. There were four women alive in the spring and most of the fifty people remaining were the children.

Our Class Fruit Salad: Each child was asked to bring a fruit. Then, each child helped prepare the fruit for a fruit salad. Each child adds to our special preschool here.

(Thank you, Olivia, for the pineapple and special cutting and juicing tool.) Thanks to the students for apples, tangerines, bananas, and grapes. We enjoyed a delicious salad and had even more fun cutting, picking off, peeling, separating, adding, and mixing our salad all by ourselves!

Slicing grape halves and banana wheels.

Hugh said, "Ahh, a kiss (of cream)!" (before licking off his finger and washing his hands)

Miss Julie

Turkey Cookies!
(Indian and Candy Corn, sandwich cookies, caramel Kisses, and
melted chocolate and candy eyes)

Our Feast: Popcorn, Corn-meal Muffins, Broccoli Au Gratin, Yams,
Turkey,
Cranberry Sauce,
Apple Cider, Fruit Salad, and Pumpkin Delight.

Alphabet Adventures Fruit Salad!

Now, for a prayer and it's time to eat!

Yum!

Today was a special preschool because we worked together to make a feast and remember the First Thanksgiving between the Pilgrims and the Indians (Native Americans--especially Chief Massasoit, Squanto, and Samoset ).

** Thanks you, parents, for your patience with me when our feast ran over time and for contributing the fruit for our fruit salad!

Some of our favorite Thanksgiving Books:
Thanksgiving Books:
The Most Thankful Thing by Lisa McCourt, Ill. by Cyd Moore (Scholastic)
The Story of the Pilgrims by Katherine Ross, Ill. by Carolyn Croll
Arthur's Thanksgiving by Marc Brown
It's Thanksgiving by Jack Prelutsky, Ill. by Marilyn Hafner
Thanksgiving With Me by Margaret Willey, Ill. by Lloyd Bloom
The Night Before Thanksgiving by Natasha Wing, Ill. by Tammie Lyon
The First Thanksgiving Feast by Joan Anderson, Phots by George Anacona
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George, Ill. by Thomas Locker
Thanksgiving Day by Anne Rockwell, Ill. by Lizzy Rockwell
Sarah Morton's Day; A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl by Kate Waters, photos by Russ Kendall
The Pilgrims of Plymouth by Marica Sewall
Brother Eagle, Sister Sky Ill. by Susan Jeffers
I Am The Turkey (I Can Read! 2) by Michelle Sobel Sprin, Ill. by Joy Allen
10 Fat Turkey's by Tony Johnston, Ill. by Rich Deas
All the Places to Love by Patricia Maclachlan, Paintings by Mike Wimmer
Thank you, Grandpa by Lynn Ploude, Ill. by Jason Cockcroft
Grandad's Prayers of the Earth by Douglas Wood, Ill. by P.J. Lynch

Online fun--Thanksgiving Websites:

• Hubbard's Cupboard--The First Thanksgiving
  
• Scholastic page on The First Thanksgiving (great wealth of information and pictures)
• First School--Alphabet Printable Activities, "Turkey"