I want our special theme this month to be Thanksgiving. Are there any sites/books/etc. that I can use to explain the history about Thanksgiving to a kinder/1st grader?
ok shhhhhh don't tell anybody here are the links for Thanksgiving freebies in my post for The Homeschool Village this month Sorry I can't give a description of each link-that would be my whole post going up LOL then it would cause google issues. If you read the links though you can get an idea fo what they are before clicking But this is probably what we are doing with my prek & 2nd grader. With the addition of possibly a lapbook that I think I have on my thumb drive... http://heartofwisdom.com/images/blog/LEAVES.pdf http://www.cartooncritters.com/drawturkey.htm http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodthanksgiving.html http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/history/first-thanksgiving/ http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Falling-Leaves-Alphabet-Fluency-Game http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/2011/10/free-printables-tt-is-for-turkey-multi.html http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/10/thanksgiving-printables-more.html
I'll probably offend a lot of people, but our Thanksgiving education comes from Charlie Brown. :lol: Seriously, though... we're doing world history chronologically. We'll eventually get to American history in much more depth, but for now, I'm not dwelling on any particular event. I'd rather dig deep and tell why/how things happened in context than pull out stories here and there from history. That's how I was taught as a kid, and none of it makes sense. My mom was a history teacher for years, but still, history is by FAR my weakest subject!
Does anyone teach the true history of Thanksgiving? Its not just pilgrims and Indians sitting down for a yummy meal... if in fact that ever even happened. I'm too new to post links, but I can paste it here: THE REAL STORY OF THANKSGIVING by Susan Bates Most of us associate the holiday with happy Pilgrims and Indians sitting down to a big feast. And that did happen - once. The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped. By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language. He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags. But as word spread in England about the paradise to be found in the new world, religious zealots called Puritans began arriving by the boat load. Finding no fences around the land, they considered it to be in the public domain. Joined by other British settlers, they seized land, capturing strong young Natives for slaves and killing the rest. But the Pequot Nation had not agreed to the peace treaty Squanto had negotiated and they fought back. The Pequot War was one of the bloodiest Indian wars ever fought. In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered. Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with a many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible. Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness. Their chief was beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years. The killings became more and more frenzied, with days of thanksgiving feasts being held after each successful massacre. George Washington finally suggested that only one day of Thanksgiving per year be set aside instead of celebrating each and every massacre. Later Abraham Lincoln decreed Thanksgiving Day to be a legal national holiday during the Civil War -- on the same day he ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota. This story doesn't have quite the same fuzzy feelings associated with it as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast. But we need to learn our true history so it won't ever be repeated. Next Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to Thank God for all your blessings, think about those people who only wanted to live their lives and raise their families. They, also took time out to say "thank you" to Creator for all their blessings.
I agree! Which is exactly why I said what I said. I'd rather get into history in depth, chronologically, with the hows & whys, not just scratch the surface like most schools do. There are things in history that a 6 year old doesn't need to know about. We're doing an overview of history for now. Because we're working cyclically, we'll go back and dig deeper each time we come to events in history.
Yes, I can agree that some of the true history of the holiday is too gruesome for children. It is actually pretty hard in some cases. I don't want to lie to my child and say that its a really great holiday about turkey and sharing... but we also can't explain the gory details at this point. We don't celebrate thanksgiving at all in my family...
We celebrate what it has become... a day for being thankful... Just as we don't celebrate "religious" or "pagan" holidays in that sense. We T-or-T to get candy and be silly (but don't do any of the weird or gory stuff). We exchange gifts and eat a big meal without making it a birthday celebration for Christ (because he wasn't actually born in winter, nor are we told to celebrate his birth, only his death/res). We hunt easter eggs just because it's fun, but we, again, don't celebrate the holiday religiously. My kids are learning and/or will learn the history of holidays... all in due time. For now, they're just learning how to be kids. Sorry to hijack the thread. That wasn't the intent.
I haven't read the other respones so I hope I am not posting something someone already has but I just found this. I haven't explored this entire site yet, but I thought I would post this while I was thinking about it. http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/
On Aug 6th, 1945 the US dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. Lets say, for some horrible reason, President Truman decided that we should have a national holiday on that day celebrating the murder of over 200,000 people. He decided to call it X-Day. As time goes on Aug 6th and X day change a bit. Families use that day to exchange gifts and towns start having parades. After all, we all have the day off for X-day... why not spend it with family and friends? In modern times, the truth of X-day has been lost and the general public think that its a day we all sit down with family and remember how great our lives are. It is very commercialized and everyone eats tuna noodle casserole. A cute cartoon tuna embellishes everything from table clothes to flags. The truth of X day is out there for anyone who wants to know, but because its become such a commercialized day, no one cares. I know this is far fetched, but how does it reflect on us as a society that we don't want to step outside of the norm and say no to things that are just wrong? *****EDIT**** I changed the name of my fictitious holiday to avoid confusion.
It's sometimes called VJ Day - meaning Victory over Japan day. I would wonder if the Japanese celebrate Pearl Harbor.
V-day brought about the end of a very horrible war that we were provoked into. Remember Pearl Harbor? Everyone was thrilled the war was over. We celebrate the origins of Thanksgiving every year. Yes, white men did terrible things to the Indians - for two hundred years. But that started later. The first Thanksgiving is recorded, it really happened. And the original Pilgrims, the half who survived the first horrible winter, had good relations with the Indians. They were truly thankful for a harvest to sustain them through another year. The problem came with settlers who arrived over soon after. They squabbled over leadership. They squabbled over money. And yes, they massacred the Indians. But the very first story is beautiful and accurate. I highly recommend this georgous picture book, The First Thanksgiving, by renouned children's historian, Jean Craighead George. An excellent, well-researched young chapter book is A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipple, Mayflower, 1620 (Dear America Series) by Kathryn Lasky. It's okay to celebrate the first Thanksgiving. It's a bright spot in mankind's bloody history.
Perhaps I should go back and change the name of my fictitious holiday. I was trying to make a point that just because its become a commercialized warm and fuzzy holiday does not change its true meaning and past.
Yeah, V-day is real. VE Day (over Europe) and VJ Day (over Japan), which brought an end to the years that killed 50-70 million people. That's worth celebrating, and it's distinguishable from celebrating the bloodshed. Same with Thanksgiving. There's good there worth celebrating.
The beauty of homeschooling is that we're each entitled to our own opinions. "History is written by the winners" comes to mind. There are a lot of things taught in public, private, and home schools that I completely disagree with, but I'm thankful to live in a country that allows me to teach my children my own values, ideas, and ideals. Thanksgiving is something we'll continue to celebrate as we always have... a day of thanks (and parades, and football, and food, and fights with the in-laws.) I still think the Charlie Brown version of the story is pretty close to accurate as far as the first Thanksgiving goes. America has been known to mistreat people of all races, but that's not the point of the holiday.
And we are NOT the only country in the world that does that. (not excusing it, but just saying sometimes the log needs to be removed from someone's eye before the speck from the others.....)
Growing up I was homeschooled and November was one of our favorite months for school! We learned in depth about the pilgrims, Indians and the first Thanksgiving. I can say from a homeschooled p-o-v that how my mother always made the holidays exciting and a fun time to learn has left me with wonderful memories! Hands down the best memories I have of homeschooling are the lessons taught during the holidays. I am so excited as this is my first year homeschooling and I hope that I can make Thanksgiving half as much fun and meaningful as she did! I am planning on starting a "Thankful Tree" tomorrow and have everyone (besides my 18 month old!) post something everyday. We will also be doing lots of traditional crafts (last year my daughter made a bonnet like the women wore in that time period. I didn't have a pattern, just folded and stapled white construction paper until it resembled a bonnet and added yarn to tie). We have The First Thanksgiving board book and it is a tradition to read that every year, so we will be reading that book. I am excited to check out the other links posted to get some more ideas!
Our local library had tons of books on display for Thanksgiving in the children's room. I browsed while the kids did puzzles and looked at books and found one called Squanto and the First Thanksgiving. If you are looking for a simple story about Thanksgiving this was a good one. I read it to my 4 year old and it satisfied his curiosity. Anyway, check out your local library. Good luck!
