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Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving approaches, why not do some investigation about this historically important national holiday?

• Teachers: Try challenging your students to delve into using these suggestions at home for extra credit when presented to the class.
• Parents: Share the joy of learning with your children by exploring these sites together!

Indiana Academic Standards
English/Language Arts

Standard 4: Writing Process/Research and Technology

English/Language Arts

Standard 7: Listening and Speaking

Social Studies

Standard 1: History

The First Thanksgiving

visit this site
Developed by Scholastic.com, this site includes a teacher's guide, slide shows, and interviews with the pilgrims at Plimouth Plantation.

Suggested Activities for Students

1. Begin by exploring the picture timeline for the First Thanksgiving.
2. Take an interactive tour of the Mayflower, and learn what life was like onboard.
3. Discover how the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag spent their time.
4. Ask a Pilgrim a question when you visit the section called "Experience Life in Plimouth."
5. Imagine yourself interviewing Fast Turtle, a Wampanoag who lived near the Plimouth Village in Massachusetts.
6. Compare and contrast the life of a Wampanoag to a Pilgrim child, and their lives to your own.
7. Test your Thanksgiving knowledge by taking the CyberChallenge!

Tips for Teachers

Visit the link to the teacher's guide. This provides grade levels for each activity, a time line for introducing the components and evaluation rubrics.

Tips for Parents

Visit the link to the teacher's guide. This page provides help in selecting activities appropriate for your child's grade level. "

Plimoth Plantation: Living Breathing History - Learning

visit this site
Researched by Plimouth Plantation, this site offers well-researched information about our National holiday.

Suggested Activity for Students

Have you ever wondered what the first Thanksgiving was REALLY like? It was much different than what you may think! Visit the site listed above and find two new facts that you didn't know about Thanksgiving. Share your discoveries with a classmate, parent, or teacher.

Tips for Teachers

• Have students work in small groups to research this site and find new information about our National holiday.
• Create a class slide show about the "real" Thanksgiving by combining researched facts.
• Have a classroom Thanksgiving feast and invite parents to celebrate and learn the "real" facts about Thanksgiving.

Tips for Parents

• Make a list of all the things you and your child know about Thanksgiving.
• Together visit this site. As you do your research, mark each fact you have on your list as either true or false.
• Once your research is completed, count up how many true and false statements you had on your list.
• Have your child write a letter to his/her teacher, suggesting ways to help other students learn the real facts about Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Quizzes

Take the following Thanksgiving quizzes to test your knowledge!
Scrambled Words
Student Research Activity
Thanksgiving History
Thanksgiving in the USA: an English Lesson

Suggested Activity for Students

Take one or more of the quizzes listed above. For each quiz you take, write a review of that quiz including the appropriate age levels a student should be to take this quiz and why or why not this is a good quiz about Thanksgiving.

Tips for Teachers

• Have the students share their reviews with their peers.

Tips for Parents

• Have your child rank the quizzes from easiest to hardest.
• Let your child challenge the family in answering the quizzes - set simple family prizes for perfect scores (popcorn and a movie, playing a board game together, a special dessert, etc.)

Teacher's Suggestions

You Are the Historian
submitted by Kerrie
Jacobs Elementary School
Hull, Massachusetts

Use this site to help you discover the TRUTH about Thanksgiving. This site includes a teacher's guide. We have been working on this for four weeks in computer lab. The kids love it.