Thanksgiving!

Who else is teaching this week like me?

My class went on a field trip yesterday, so we only have two days to squeeze in some Thanksgiving stuff.  Being in Hawaii, the kids have a hard time making real connections to the Pilgrim and Native American traditional Thanksgiving story.  As an educator, I'm not even sure I want to teach that story since it's not entirely factual (see this National Geographic Kids article).  But I'm not here to argue that, I'm here to show you what we did instead!

I love using the book The Most Thankful Thing.

It talks about things in the mom's life that she is thankful for.  But in the end, she is most thankful for her daughter.  It's so sweet and I cry reading it every.single.year! You'd think after 11 years I'd pull it together? Nope! 

If you are interested in using this book, maybe my Thanksgiving Feast unit would be helpful.  

You can read about my post from last year. 

I did find a 190 Lexile reading passage on ReadWorks called The Pilgrim's Path that the kids will read.  We're going to practice marking the text and answering text dependent questions.  I love ReadWorks for that! 

We'll also make a cute book that I used to do at my old school in Oregon.  

The kids cut out each page around the design, then stack and staple.  They practice reading for fluency.  I re-made the wording (the original was in Spanish and Russian).  This time, your students will get to copy the message and practice writing.  

Do you have any non-traditional Thanksgiving activities that you love?