Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Our Thanksgiving Feast!

Do you know why we celebrate Thanksgiving?

There were some cute responses to this:  "Yes! It's because we eat chicken and share chicken!"
"The pilgrims got washed away to the Indian Island!" Ethan informed us.

Toys: Potato Heads, Color Puzzles, and Foam Blocks.




 Ethan has his "pirate face" on!


 Cute turkey bum!
Snack: ( In the place of our snack, each student brought a part of our feast!  Thank you Moms for your support.)  "We all brought things for our class feast--that makes us friends!"

We had fun singing songs today:
Janeen Brady's, "The Pilgrims and the Indians"
It's Autumn-Time
and the storybook/song, "I'm a Turkey" by Jim Arnosky.

Show N' Teach:

William--"I'm thankful for my Star Wars guys!"
Brody--Thankful for Nursery Rhymes
Eva--Turkey shirt!
Kayson--"I brought a Cat's Thanksgiving; I like the cats chasing the mice and making pies (parts in the book)."
Ethan--"I brought a turkey because the Indians brought wild turkeys."
Dade--10 Fat Turkeys


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 reviewed the First Thanksgiving. You can find and print out pilgrim and Indian pictures 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 Feast: Popcorn, Corn-meal Muffins, Yams,
Turkey, Craisins, Fruit Salad, and Pumpkin Pie with cream.

Eva offered a prayer and we ate up our feast!



During our feasting we passed around a glitter turkey and played the Grateful Game counting all the things we were thankful for.


Ethan said during the feast, "This is the BEST feast!"
 













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

We missed Eleanor, Seth, and Theo and hope to see them on Tuesday!

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
I'm a Turkey! by Jim Arnosky
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: