Thanksgiving Timeline

We have one more activity that you can work on this season with your little ones.  We read The Very First Thanksgiving several times the past couple of weeks.  The paintings in the book are beautiful, and it tells the story of the Pilgrims, how they came to America, and the first Thanksgiving. 

The order of the story starts at the first Thanksgiving and works backwards, so we talked about chronology several times.  Save for the fact that E is still convinced the Pilgrims came over on the “Cauliflower” and landed at “Pilgrim Rock” its been successful.  The book though got me wishing I had a timeline of events to work through with her, and that’s when I decided to make this:

This timeline is one you can print off and work together after you read through a storybook about the Pilgrims.  Just put the pictures in order of the events as they happened, or you could glue them to a sheet of construction paper.

Here are some books about Thanksgiving several of them would work great for this activity.  You can buy them through the link, or you can jot down titles and check them out at the library!

Please be aware that affiliate links may be present.  If you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…thanks!

Thanksgiving {Expanded}

Check out our new and expanded “Thanksgiving” unit!  We’ve added a few new printables, which you can download. 

Just click the image above to download a single zip file of all the printables. (Can’t unzip it. Try Hamster Free Zip Archiver approved by Amber’s husband. Remember to download carefully.)

You will need to be able to view pop-ups to download the unit, as it will appear in a pop up window from our site!

Here are some of the printables included in this unit:

• Shape Person: Native American
• Pp Letter Sort
• Number Maze: Mayflower
• Number Order Puzzle (1-10 and 11-20) 
• Magnet Page 
• Writing Maze
• Beginning Writing/Cutting Practice 
• Sort: Who Does it Belong to?
• Roll & Graph
• Memory Cards
• Spelling Pages
• Which is Different? 
• Patterns (ABAB and AABB)  
• Size Sort    

Tot Pack

Looking for some ideas for a younger tot?  Check out our Thanksgiving Tot Pack. (Tot Packs inspired by 1+1+1=1.) Here are the printables included in this pack:

• Thanksgiving Match
• Name Turkeys
• Give Thanks Picture Puzzle
• Thanksgiving Word Mini Book
• Size Sequencing
• Turkey Shape Bellies
• Thanksgiving Count

 

Products We Use with Our Units

Looking for more ideas?

• Kindergarten Extension Pack
• Devotional & Memory Verse Helps
• Center Ideas
• Thanksgiving Dice Game
• Pilgrim Shape Craft
• Thanksgiving Timeline 
• Book Recommendations
• Last Year's Post

There are also more  ideas, units, printables and crafts available on this theme.  Check out our Pinterest Board for some of our favorites!

We hope you enjoy these printables and please let us know if you have any issues with downloading or using the items provided. 

Please do not sell or host these files anywhere else. You MAY link people here. When leading others to these printables, please link to THIS page, not to the file page.  Thanks! (See TOU)

 

Special thanks to Just So Scrappy for some of the graphics.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 
Madonna and I would just like to take this time to wish all of you a very Happy Thanksgiving.  We are so grateful to be sharing this day with our families, and we pray that each of you has the opportunity to be surrounded by the ones you love. 

2 Teaching Mommies is such a blessing to both of us, and we are truly grateful that the Lord has given us the opportunity that this blog affords us.  We give all the glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and it is for His grace and salvation that we are most grateful today.  In that we share this prayer from Valley of Vision, which is a collection of Puritan prayers.  Its an oldie, but a goodie.    

Oh, God, thou fairest, greatest, first of all objects,
my heart admires, adores, loves thee,
for my little vessel is as full as it can be,
and I would pour out all that fullness before thee in ceaseless flow.

When I think upon and converse with thee
ten thousand delightful thoughts spring up,
ten thousand sources of pleasure are unsealed,
ten thousand refreshing joys spread over my heart,
crowding into every moment of happiness.

I bless thee for the soul thou hast created,
for adorning it, sanctifying it, though it is fixed in barren soil;
for the body thou hast given me,
for preserving its strength and vigor,
for providing sense to enjoy delights,
for the ease and freedom of my limbs,
for hands, eyes, ears that do thy bidding;
for thy royal bounty providing my daily support,
for a full table and overflowing cup,
for appetite, taste, sweetness,
for social joys of relatives and friends,
for ability to serve others,
for a heart that feels sorrow and necessities,
for a mind to care for my fellow-men,
for opportunities of spreading happiness around,
for loved ones in the joys of heaven,
for my own expectation of seeing thee clearly.

I love thee above the powers of language to express,
for what thou are to thy creatures.
Increase my love, O my God, through time and eternity.

From our families to yours, Happy Thanksgiving. 
 

^{Amber and}

Thanksgiving Dice Game

This game was big hit with my son and his cousins (ages 1-7) last Thanksgiving.  It was a lot of prep work, but it kept the kids out of our hair while we prepared food for Thanksgiving.  But don’t worry, I’ve saved you a lot of work.

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(Originally posted: November 2009 on A Mommy Talks)

While searching the web I came across this Scarecrow Felt Board + Game on Let's Explore, in which I said to myself, "I can recreate that with a Pilgrim and Indian!" 

Since, I had recently created Itty Bitty Love's Felt Turkey activity, I wanted to switch it up a bit.  I decided to create (well have my husband create) our Indian and Pilgrim with foam and magnets, which works even better for this household because we have metal closet doors and no felt board!  However, my husband needed a little more inspiration to help finalize the design.  So, while browsing on DLTK's site I came across what I would use as my Pilgrim boy and Indian boy model.

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Since my husband loves me, and I love you, we decided to make it easier for you. My darling husband turned our 3-D game pieces into a downloadable printable.  Isn’t he awesome!  So, print it on card stock and laminate. (Playing card included) To play this game you’ll need a dice or you can use our Counting Cards 1-6.  This game can be played as a one person game or a 2 player game.

Have fun and enjoy!

Questions?  Post questions or comments on our Facebook Page.  You may have the same question as someone else.  If you don’t have a Facebook account, feel free to email us.

 

 

Thanksgiving Tot Book

Today we are putting up our Thanksgiving Tot Book!  There are several different activities you can do with you kiddo in the Tot Book.  They are:

• Pilgrim Counting Cards
• Thanksgiving Memory Game
• Turkey Name Spelling
• Thanksgiving Feast Size Sort
• Turkey Belly Shapes
• Pilgrim Puzzle

You can download our Thanksgiving Tot Book here!  Enjoy!

Pilgrim Shape Craft

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we thought you might enjoy some more fun holiday activities.  Plus, in our house we need to take a break from our normal Tot School schedule, so I can start prepping for Thanksgiving. To start us off, I pulled a shape craft from my archives that we did last year.  My son was 23 months at the time.  I hope you enjoy.

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(Originally posted: November 2009 on A Mommy Talks)

This shape pilgrim is a great art project for Thanksgiving. No Time For Flash Card's Shape Scarecrow Craft inspired me with the idea.

If you would like to create this craft with your child, you will need color construction paper of your choice, glue, scissors, a marker and the following shapes cut from construction paper. (I apologize for my poorly cut ovals.)

At first this project seemed some what difficult for my son because he didn't like to get the glue on his hands and he just stuck the pieces anywhere on the paper, but once I started to put glue where each shape was suppose to go, he really got into it.

 

As we glued each shape on the paper we named it and the color. He really does well at naming his shapes, but is still working on his colors.  I hope to create more shape crafts in the future because it ended up being really easy. 

First Thanksgiving

This unit has been expanded. So, make sure and get all the printables here.

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Here is what we’ve been doing this week. Let us know what you think.  We hope by providing these materials to you free of charge, it will make your life easier! 

Lesson Plan: The lesson plan includes all the lessons for the week, as well as optional ideas. Items following the lesson plan are just the printables or links to websites we used to teach these plans.  (Please note: On top of our lesson plan we are reading books daily that relate to our theme.)

Memory Verse: This memory card is for daily use during our calendar time.  You can learn more about calendar time at 1+1+1=1 or Homeschool Creations.  Our weekly devotional is an object lesson that will help your child apply the meaning of the verse to them.

Day 1: 
Pilgrim Word Book- Teaches your child how letters are linked to sounds to form letter-sound correspondence.

Mayflower Number Maze-  This activity will help your child practice counting whole numbers 1-10 in order by 1s.

Pilgrim Hat Craft-  Have fun pretending to be a pilgrim or learning about pilgrim dress by creating one of these pilgrim hats from Kaboose:

• Girl Pilgrim Bonnets 
• Boy Pilgrim Hats

Day 2:
H is for Helping- Teaches your child how letters are linked to sounds to form letter-sound correspondence.

         

Shape Indians- Your child will use visualization and spatial reasoning to begin to notice characteristics and properties of geometric shapes.

Pilgrim & Indian Sort- Use this activity to compare/contrast Pilgrims and Indians.

 

Day 3:
Thanksgiving Spelling- Helps your child begin to recognize that when letters are combined they form words.  We used letter tilesfor this activity, but scrabble pieces work well too.

Roll a Graph: Thanksgiving Dinner- This activity will introduce your child to data collection and interpretation.  Once you’ve completed the graph (first food item to 10), make sure to ask simple questions.  Such as, “Which color is taller? What food item is that?  Which color is shorter? Which food is that? How many times did we give the (food item) a sticker?”  Make sure to show them how to use the graph, instead of just counting the stickers.

I am Thankful Activity- Use this activity from Hubbard's Cupboard to talk to your child about being thankful.  

We hope you enjoy these lesson plans and please let us know if you have any issues with downloading or using the items provided.
  

Special thanks to Just So Scrappy for some of the graphics.

Please do not sell or host these files anywhere else. You MAY link people here. When leading others to these printables, please link to THIS page, not the 4shared file page.  Thanks! (See TOU)

 

Some Craft Ideas…

For some extra fun this week you can give one of these ideas a try!  They would make great activities for fun, or for with the whole family! 

You can make these super cute “Pilgrims” with a print out and an old TP roll and “Indians” also!

 

We’re making Pilgrim hats as part of our unit, but you can also make Indian Vests out of brown paper bags.  This is a very detailed vest, but it gives you some ideas out of the box.  Think about using some ribbon and tinfoil to give your vest some flair!

 

Of course, don’t forget your Indian Feather Headdress to go with your vest. 

         
       Construction Paper Kind     or           Real Feathers Kind

Have a great week!

Giving Thanks

This week we are posting lessons you can use with your tot for Thanksgiving.  Our verse is from Psalm 100:4

Give thanks to Him and Praise His name!

Materials:

• This table Printable

• These “thankful cards”

Directions:

• Using this table printable, have your child pick their five favorite things. 
• Have you child put their favorite things around the table.
• Go over the devotional with your child.
• Say the verse above with your child.  We suggest that you print the verse off and use it every morning with your calendar time.  If you don’t do calendar time still say the verse each morning with your tot before you begin tot school.

Talk about the following with your tot:

At Thanksgiving we always eat a big meal.  We do this because we are celebrating all the the things we are thankful for.  We used our table and put some things on the table that you really like.  We put some fun things on the table didn’t we?  Did you know that all of these things are something that we call blessings?  Blessings are things that God gives us, not because we need them, but because he loves us and wants to give us good things.  You see God doesn’t always give us everything that we want, but He does give us many good things.  One of the best things that God ever gave us was His son, Jesus.  God sent us Jesus so that we could always be with God.  That is the thing we should be most thankful for.  Its important that when God gives us good things that we show Him we’re thankful.  We need to praise God for what He’s done, and be sure that we tell him that we’re thankful everyday.  Let’s pray and tell God thank you!

Dear Father, thank you for giving us so many blessings.  We know that all things come from you, and we know that you give us good things because you love us.  We have so many things that we don’t need, you just know that we like them, so you’ve given them to us!  Thank you for all of these things, and for loving us so much.  Amen

Questions to ask your tot:

• You might want to review last weeks questions with your tot.
• Who gives us all the good things that we have? God
• What do we do when we are thankful for our blessings?  Say THANK YOU!  

 

Questions?  Post questions or comments on our Facebook Page.  You may have the same question as someone else.  If you don’t have a Facebook account, feel free to email us.

Movie Night- Pilgrims Hat Treat

This week we are focusing on Pilgrims, Indians and Thanksgiving!  While, browsing the web, I found the best dessert to go with our evening. 

These Pilgrim hats are quick and so easy your tot can do it.  And trust me they’ll love eating these sweet treats. 

Here is what you’ll need:  Fudge Strip Cookies Reese’s Miniatures Reese’s Pieces or M&Ms White Icing

To make these Pilgrim Hats, just follow these easy steps:

Step 1:	Step 2:
Unwrap enough Reese’s Miniatures for the total number of cookies you plan to make.	Place a ring of frosting around the center of the Fudge Strip Cookies. (I did this part.)
Step 3:	Step 4:
Press a Reese’s Miniature down on top of the frosting, until the excess frosting creates a ring around the Miniature.	Finally, add a Reese’s Piece to the base of the Miniature to resemble the buckle of a Pilgrim’s hat.
Step 5:	Step 6:
Don’t forget to pose for a silly picture with your cookie creations!	EAT and ENJOY!

To end the night we watched the classic, A Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving. Can you tell that Amber and I like Charlie Brown movies? 

Movie Ideas:

• Below you’ll find some possible movie ideas to fit our theme. 
• Use your discretion on what is appropriate for your child.  These movies are merely suggestions and you should read and consider reviews of these movies before watching them.
• Be sure and check Netflix if you have an instant streaming option.

Questions?  Post questions or comments on our Facebook Page.  You may have the same question as someone else.  If you don’t have a Facebook account, feel free to email us.