Thanksgiving Activities for First Grade

I finally had the opportunity to do some themed planning, and after frequenting The First Grade Parade {my new FAVORITE blog!} I was inspired to incorporate lots of her Thanksgiving literacy activities into my own curriculum.  I owe her heaps of credit and am thankful that she posts so many easily doable activities on her site.  If you teach primary, you must check her out.  Enough italicizing, on with the projects!

It just so happened that we were studying long a words this week, and this darling printable was available at TFGP.  The kids could choose real words or "silly" {nonsense} words to write on the feathers, which is why this student wrote thave.  They're totally adorable. 

We read The Pilgrim's First Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern, and then used a graphic organizer of the Mayflower to sort statements about what life was like aboard it.

 Afterwards, they created these adorable "suitcases" that they would pack if they were able to travel on the Mayflower in modern times. 

 We read so many Thanksgiving-themed books this week, that I forget the one we read before we created this Venn diagram about pilgrims and Indians.  I think it was about Squanto, though. 

 We created another graphic organizer that discussed things the pilgrims did in the 1600s compared to what we do in the 2000s.  Then, as a follow-up, the kids created a pilgrim child and were given the sentence starter "I can_____, but the pilgrims could not."

For morning work one day, I gave each child a copy of a Thanksgiving poem that they were to write for the Thanksgiving placemats we created.  The turkey feather spread were marker-tye-died coffee filters and turned out adorable.   

 We also made scrapook paper turkeys with button eyes.  Love them!  First grade artwork is the best!

This idea was my own and incorporates graphing, making predictions, along with connections.  After reading so much about the pilgrims plight on the Mayflower, I decided to give my kids a taste {literally} of what life may have been like.  They had to predict whether or not they thought they would like Mayflower fare - "salted beef" and "dry biscuits."  The "salted beef" was regular beef jerky and the "dry biscuits" were drop biscuits made from Jiffy mix.  The kids loved the taste test. 

Our focus in reading was predictions, so we created a prediction chart for T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey.  The kids loved this story!  We followed this activity with the scrapbook turkeys pictured above. 

 And, if you want to read the poem above clearer, here is the sample I showed the kids. 

Again, please remember that I borrowed many of these ideas for TFGP!