Thanksgiving. . .never too late to be Thankful!

Okay,  I am the worst blogger, ever.  I am going to say it is because I spend all my time planning and executing amazing lesson plans.  Yep, I am going with that.

We are getting ready to board the Mayflower. We knew we couldn't take much so we had to think about what is really important to us. What are we the most Thankful for? Answers ranged from pillows, to dolls (some that they didn't own yet but hoped to have. . .hey, Christmas was already on their minds. . .) to watermelons to their Dadddy's.
I made little suitcases for the kids out of file folders and braided fabric for the handles. They were very cute!

We had to follow a map to the new land, once we got on the boat. Our maps had words on them. They kids each had their own map (we are all at different reading levels so this worked well to customize) and had to search the right word to match from the 'sea'. When they completed their map, they were in America!

A couple of the better readers had to match synonyms.

Mmmm. . .our feast! Each pilgrim brought something that would be at the FIRST Thanksgiving feast. What great parents I have to research and prepare with their little pilgrims. We had grapes (they foraged for fruit), Pumpkin and pistachio pudding (pudding is the only documented desert we know for sure they ate on that first Thanksgiving), roasted root veggies (YUM!!!!), Corn pancakes (gluten-free, of course). The kids loved it. They were so polite and tried everything. What good little pilgrims.

School for pilgrim children was much harder than it is today. They didn't have pens and crayons and markers like we do. They didn't even have all the books we do! They had the bible and that was about it. They had to learn from the things they had so they learned from the bible.
We found out what it was like in school for these children by copying a verse from the bible. But, no pens or crayons! We used feathers we found in the chicken coop and pots of mud, ash and water for our ink. Everyone agreed that crayons were a lot easier!
We had a great Pilgrim-themed Thanksgiving party. The kids were adorable and loved the variation from our usual schedule.

A lot of the ideas for this party came from a beautifully photographed blog that I LOVE: thenatureofgrace.blogspot.com

I think if I could photograph like that. . .I would blog more. In my head, the memories look like that.