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Students can write what they are thankful for and then put it on the thankful tree.

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For the past few years one of my favorite things my family and I do in the fall is sit down and write all of the things we are grateful for. I have tried displaying these things in different ways (see Vinyl Thankful Tree and my Be Thankful Mantel) but I've been wanting to come up with something we could pull out and use each year. So I designed a printable Thankful Tree and I love it! I'm sharing it with you today so you can make one too! It's the perfect family night activity. It's fun to see what my kids put year-to-year... for example, my boys are currently binge watching The Office and so that made the tree (twice). Ha! In years past Pokemon, Dora and The Indianapolis Colts have all made it on to the thankful tree as well. So cute!

All you need to do is download the tree print HERE and print the tree as a 16×20 (I printed mine at Costco). Then put it in a frame or display it some how in your home.

Then download the leaves HERE and print out a sheet for everyone to write something they are thankful for on each leaf.

Then cut out each leaf (I would have everyone cut out their own if they are able) and adhere them to your tree!

I had fun placing some of them off the edge of the mat for a more 3D effect. You could also slightly curl some of the leaves or fold them in half down the middle to create a more leaf-like appearance!

I love this tradition and am so happy to have a way to re-create it each year so easily!

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For the past few years one of my favorite things my family and I do in the fall is sit down and write all of the things we are grateful for. I have tried displaying these things in different ways (see Vinyl Thankful Tree and my Be Thankful Mantel) but I've been wanting to come up with something we could pull out and use each year.

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This a great interactive idea to get the students to learn the history of the Mayflower in a fun and hands-on way.

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Explore the Mayflower with kids this Thanksgiving while they make an easy craft and learn American history. The free template comes with a cut and fold diagram of the inside of the Mayflower that kids can open and close. It also comes with 6 sails to to add onto 4 masts for a crafty replica of the famous ship. To go along with our history activity we also watched some video clips and read some books together. When we were done with this activity my kids could tell you about the different layers of the Mayflower (upper deck, lower deck, and cargo hold), who was on the Mayflower, how many people where on the Mayflower, where they sailed from, where they landed, and much more. While you are here make sure to check out all our Thanksgiving Activities.
Suggested Books:

Mayflower 1620: A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage -affiliate link
. . . If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 -affiliate link

The Mayflower and Thanksgiving History -affiliate link

Suggested Video:
The Mayflower by History.com
Inside the Mayflower Paper Plate Craft

Supplies:

Mayflower craft template printed on white paper

Paper plate

Brown paint

Paint brush

Scissors

Glue

2 Regular sized popsicle sticks -affiliate link

2 Small sized popsicle sticks -affiliate link

White craft paper

Directions:

Cut paper plate in half, have child paint the top brown, and set it aside to dry.

Have child cut out the craft template making sure not to cut on the dotted line of the boat template.

Have child fold the boat template on the dotted line and paint the outside brown (on the reverse side of the boat measurements) so when the template is on the boat it will be brown like the boat.

Have child glue the two tall popscile sticks towards the middle of the boat and the two smaller popscile sticks towards the front and back of the boat.

Have child glue the sails on. As we did this part we talked about the difference of engine boats and sailboats. Before we glued the sails on we blew them across the table. The Mayflowers sail power managed to travel at a 2 mile per hour-they were cruisin'!

Have child glue the boat template on making sure to only put glue on the reverse side of the boat deck layers.

The Mayflower had 3 levels. The upper deck was mostly reserved for the crew. The lower deck was where the pilgrims remained. I can't even imagine being inside a boat with 102 people for about 2 months. This area was less than 6 feet tall-cramped, I think yes! The lower deck is where they kept the supplies.
Enjoying this post? Be sure to join our e-mail subscribers: Click Here for More Information Free Printable Thanksgiving Easy Reader Book Handprint and Footprint Turkey

Thanks for crafting with us today. If you enjoyed this idea please pin & share it with others so they can enjoy it too! Love, Katie & the Kiddos

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Learning about the Mayflower Paper Plate Craft and Free Template -

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Explore the Mayflower with kids this Thanksgiving while they make an easy craft and learn American history. The free template comes with a cut and fold diagram of the inside of the Mayflower that kids can open and close. It also comes with 6 sails to to add onto 4 masts for a crafty replica of ...

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Pete the Cat is a children's book that speaks about the history and meaning of Thanksgiving. You could read the book to the children or use this video of the story being read.

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Pete The Cat ~ The First Thanksgiving Children's Read Aloud Story Book For Kids By James Dean

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This helps teach students about not only the American side of Thanksgiving, but the Native American side, as well.

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As a child, I was raised in a white, middle-class household. We did not live in a diverse area of central Wisconsin. In fact, I had never seen a non-white person in the city until I was a teenager. As a child, I had watched Westerns on TV, and often played Cowboys and Indians outside with my neighbors. It was common for my friends and I to get upset when we had to be the Indians.

When I attended elementary school, we did not really talk about Native Americans until Thanksgiving approached. I was taught by my teachers that the Pilgrims and Indians had this big feast together and that is why we celebrate Thanksgiving. I was under the impression that the Pilgrims shared their food with the Indians to be nice. I also made the assumption that because of the way the Indians dressed, as seen in drawings about the feast, they did not have a lot.

It was not until when I became an elementary school teacher, did I take the time to educate myself about the struggles of Native Americans and the atrocities they went through during the formation of the United States. As an educator, my primary purpose in teaching social studies to my students, is so they can learn from the mistakes of the past, especially when it came to the treatment of the non-white groups living in the United States. When teaching about Native Americans, I always ask my students the question, "What do you know about Native Americans?" I tell the students that I record all responses, whether they are right or not. It is amazing to see many misconceptions that still exist. I then share with them the below
document and we discuss.

After the discussion, I show them a I then begin teaching my unit on the Native American tribes before European settlers came. I make sure my students know that there were thousands of unique tribes in America, but we study four different regions were there were certain commonalities. In the unit, the eight strands of social studies are covered. There are over 50 pages of resources and activities. Take a look below at some samples from the youtube video about the stereotypes of Native Americans in the movies. You can find the link here. I use the think-pair-share strategy to have the students talk about what they saw, and how it made them feel about how Native Americans were portrayed on the big screen.
Native American Cultures Unit.

Then, of course, comes the discussion of Thanksgiving. After wondering about what actually happened before, during, and after the feast, I began to research this holiday that has become a day to give thanks nationwide. I uncovered a strained relation between the Pilgrims, new settlers, and Wampanoag after the gathering. I have created an informational text activity that takes a look at both the Pilgrims and Wampanoag's viewpoints

If we are to learn from history, we have to uncover the truth and share it with our students. We have to move away from the eurocentric view of the world, to a view through all peoples' lenses.

Photo credit.

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Teaching about Native Americans and the Truth About Thanksgiving to Students - Wise Guys

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As a child, I was raised in a white, middle-class household. We did not live in a diverse area of central Wisconsin. In fact, I had never seen a non-white person in the city until I was a teenager. As a child, I had watched Westerns on TV, and often played Cowboys and Indians outside with my neighbors.

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This website has different sites that all have different information on the history of Thanksgiving.

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Thanksgiving Activities at Internet 4 Classrooms

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Find Thanksgiving History, Activities, Crafts, Poetry and Song at Internet 4 Classrooms, internet resources for teachers and students, children and parents

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This YouTube video has great graphics and is presented in an easy enough way for younger kids, especially Kindergarten,
to learn about Thanksgiving.

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The website allows teachers to find fun interactive activities for students. For example: books, printable coloring pages, clip art, and crafts.

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Interdisciplinary Lesson Plans, Activity Ideas and Other Curriculum Resources

Lesson Plans & Activities

Lesson Plans

The First Thanksgiving
In these leveled units, students in grades K2, 3-5, and 6-8 learn about the hardships encountered by the Pilgrims on their voyage and in their new settlement and explore different aspects of Plymouth colony's first harvest feast. Teachers will find lessons and teacher guides as well as interactive teaching tools and multimedia resources.

Activities

The First Thanksgiving Student Activities for Grades PreK-12
This site includes lessons, activities, videos, slide shows, printables, and more.

Thanksgiving Projects
4-8. Make a Thanksgiving theme picture frame.

You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving
4-8. In this interactive presentation, students use the skills of historians to explore the myth and misconception surrounding "The First Thanksgiving." Requires Flash Player 6. Includes a teachers guide.

Background Resources

Thanksgiving

Teaching About the First Thanksgiving
Discover the many meanings of Thanksgiving by exploring life in 17th-century America and the experiences of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags.

Teaching Resources for Thanksgiving
Lessons, extensions, multimedia resources, and recommended books.

Native American Perspectives on Thanksgiving
Links to additional resources.

Grades 4-8 Teacher and Student Resources for American Indian Perspectives on Thanksgiving ( PDF, 4.1 MB, 10 pgs.)
The National Museum of the American Indian provides a study guide, full-size printable versions of poster images, a separate lesson on the topic of Thanksgiving, and more.

Thanksgiving
Memoirs. Excerpts from primary sources.

Thanksgiving Timeline

Thanksgiving on the Web
A source of Thanksgiving postcards, recipes, facts, and trivia.

Pilgrims

Mayflower History
Features Pilgrim history and Plymouth Colony primary sources.

Wampanoag

The Mashpee Wampanoag Timeline
An annotated timeline 1616- 2007.

Native Languages of the Americas: Wampanoag
A source of information on language and culture. Includes a fact sheet and an introduction to Wampanoag Indian mythology.

NativeTech: Native American Technology and Art
This site focuses on the arts of Eastern Woodland Indian Peoples.

Turkey Trivia

Thanksgiving Census Facts
Consider a statistical view of Thanksgiving. Find out how many turkeys are raised for Thanksgiving, how many pounds of potatoes Americans consume around the holiday, and how many pies will be produced. Links to other Thanksgiving quiz and turkey facts.

Turkey Facts
Learn about wild and domesticated turkeys in the United States.

Recipes

Thanksgiving Recipes for Kids
Kids can help mom, dad, brother, or sister make sweet potato pie, marshmallow pilgrim hats, and turkey cookies.

Pass the Dessert: America's Thanksgiving Recipes
Find seven recipes for old fashioned Thanksgiving desserts and listen to an audio clip as the some of the finished recipes are tasted and rated.

Online Quizzes

Thanksgiving Quiz
Take and grade these 10 question quizzes.

Thanksgiving Trivia
Test your Thanksgiving savvy with this 80 question trivia test.

Books

Ten Thanksgiving Books for Children
K-8. Annotated reading list.

Online Video

New Plimoth Plantation Virtual Field Trips
K-12. Tour the Pilgrim Village, the Wampanoag Homesite, and the Plimoth Plantation.

Keeping Score: Ives Holidays Symphony (The 4th Movement is approximately 15 minutes)
Michael Tilson Thomas describes Charles IvesSymphony: New England Holidays. Those not familiar with Ives, his music can be a challenge to listen to. The 4th Movement: Thanksgiving begins at 41:30.

History of Thanksgiving
14 brief videos covering Thanksgiving history, food, football, and more.
last updated: October 4, 2017

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Thanksgiving Ideas for the Classroom, Grades K-5

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Lesson Plans The First Thanksgiving In these leveled units, students in grades K2, 3-5, and 6-8 learn about the hardships encountered by the Pilgrims on their voyage and in their new settlement and explore different aspects of Plymouth colony's first harvest feast. Teachers will find lessons and teacher guides as well as interactive teaching tools and multimedia resources.

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This video is kid friendly and goes over the story of the first Thanksgiving and why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

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The First Thanksgiving | History | Holidays | Little Fox | Animated Stories for Kids

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This Kahoot game is full of questions for young children about Thanksgiving.

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This is a great resource for second or third grade. This will help the children understand where the pilgrims came from and why we celebrate Thanksgiving.

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This video explains thanksgiving through the eyes of kids. They act out and explain how thanksgiving became.

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A group of children explain what happened on the first Thanksgiving.

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This is great for teaching our students how the first Thanksgiving came about and why we celebrate it.

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Facts about the first Thanksgiving are featured in this printable mini-book. Students will enjoy this arts & crafts activity that will also teach them about Thanksgiving history.

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This website has many games centered around Thanksgiving and is very engaging and a fun way to learn what Thanksgiving is about.

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Celebrate Thanksgiving with this collection of fun online games. Roast a delicious stuffed holiday turkey or score the winning touchdown in the big football game. Whatever game you choose, you’ll have a gobbling good time!

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Silly Turkey is an interactive way for students to read in a fun way. Students can read along with the website while making their turkey unique.

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This website lists information about Thanksgiving, such as the history, what Thanksgiving is, even how how what other countries call Thanksgiving and how they celebrate. The website also has fun activities to engage children with.

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What is Thanksgiving Day?
History of Thanksgiving
How did Thanksgiving became a holiday?
Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner
Symbols of Thanksgiving

What is Thanksgiving Day?

Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside each year where people in the United States and Canada give thanks to God for all the blessings they received during the year by feasting and prayer.

History of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Day first started in New England. It was for thanking God for the abundant harvest of crops. This is usually somewhere in late fall when the crops have been harvested. People from many parts of the world have been holding some kind of harvest festivals for thousands of years. They just called it by different names, for example :

U.K. - Harvest Festival UK
China - mid-autumn festival
Korea - Chu Suk, or also known as the Harvest Moon Festival.
India - Indian Harvest Festival (find out what it's called)

American Thanksgiving Day is probably a harvest festival at the beginning too. The first Thanksgiving Day in America was on December 4, 1619. At that time, it was a fully religious thing. A group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Plantation via the James river (near Charles City, Va) on December 4, 1619 and their charter required that the day of their arrival be observed yearly as a day of thanksgiving to God.

In New England, the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in Plymouth in 1621 by the Pilgrims together with 91 Indians. The Pilgrims first set foot at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The first winter in Massachusetts was really bad and 46 out of the original 102 Pilgrims died. It is believed that the Indians helped the Pilgrims through that difficult period and without them, the Pilgrims would not have survived.

In the following Spring of 1621, Samoset of the Wampanoag Tribe and Squanto of the Patuxtet tribe, taught the survivors how to plant corn or maize and how to catch alewives, a kind of fish to be used as a fertilizer for growing pumpkins, beans, peas and other crops. These two braves also taught the Pilgrims the art of hunting and angling. Things got better in 1621 when the corn and pumpkin harvest was bountiful. Governor William Bradford made arrangements to celebrate the bountiful harvest and to recognise the help given to the colonists by the indians with a feast. The feast was more of an English Harvest festival celebration and it lasted for three days. Governmor William Bradford sent four men out "fowling" after ducks and geese but it is not very sure if it included the turkey. The Pilgrims used to call any type of wild fowl, turkey. Unfortunately, this celebration was not repeated for many years.

In June 20, 1676, the governing council or Charlestown and Massachusetts held a meeting and by a unanimous vote, they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to proclaim June 29 as a Thanksgiving Day. The Indians were not included this time as the celebration was more about the Pilgrims' recent victory over the natives.

Read the 1676 First Thanksgiving Procalamation

Native Americans Activities and Resources

This custom soon spread from Plymouth to other New England colonies. In October 1777, all the 13 colonies joined in a thanksgiving celebration. This thanksgiving celebration was to commemorate the victory over the British at the Battle of Saratoga during the Revolutionary war. Eight days of thanksgiving was observed. This celebration was not repeated.

In 1789, President George Washington issued a general proclaimation naming November 26 a day of National Thanksgiving. Some were opposed to it as many felt it was not right to celebrate when there were hardships among some pilgrims.

Read George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation

At the same time that year, the Protestant Episcopal Church announced that the first Thursday in November would be set aside yearly for giving thanks. However, it was only in 1830 when New York had an official state Thanksgiving Day that other Northern states soon followed. Viginia, in 1855, became the first southern state to adopt this custom.

How did Thanksgiving Day became a holiday?

During the 1800s, a famous editor of the Ladies' Magazine and Godey's Lady's Book by the name of Sarah Josepha Hale (author of "Mary had a little lamb") worked many years to promote the idea of a National Thanksgiving Day. She was credited for persuading President Abraham Lincoln to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November 1863 as "A day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father." However, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt changed it to one week earlier. This was to help businesses by lengthening the shopping period before Christmas. There was an uproar and it was changed back to its original date two years later. Then, Congress changed it again after 1941 to the fourth Thursday of November and it would be a legal federal holiday.

Read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863

Today, Thanksgiving Day is usually a family reunion dinner celebration. Roast turkey is a favorite dish on this day. The Christians also attend church services and pray, thanking God for all the blessings for the year.

Traditional thanksgiving dinners those days usually includes turkeys cranberries, fish, dried fruit, clams, venison, plums and lobsters. Modern times thanksgiving dinners include the pumpkin pie.

To find out more about Thanksgiving dinners, check out the sites below.

Food Timeline : Historic American Thanksgiving Dinner Menus

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All About Thanksgiving for Kids and Teachers

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What is Thanksgiving Day? History of Thanksgiving How did Thanksgiving became a holiday? Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner Symbols of Thanksgiving What is Thanksgiving Day? Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside each year where people in the United States and Canada give thanks to God for all the blessings they received during the year by feasting and prayer.

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This brainpop video is a great way to get the students to understand the history behind Thanksgiving.