K3 Lesson Plans:

Weeks Fourteen/Fifteen (2-day week):

Unit: The First Thanksgiving
**Prepare Pilgrim (collars/hats) and Native American
(vests/necklaces/headdress) costumes in advance!
**Prepare Thanksgiving placemats for class feast!!
** NOTE HOME: ingredient (can) for vegetable soup to supplement
the harvest lesson on Friday.
Objective: To understand and discuss the history behind and
reason for the first Thanksgiving (a celebration of the harvest); to
provide an opportunity to discuss the many things to be thankful
for, and to discover Thanksgiving customs and traditions.
Activities: Reading Thanksgiving stories, making Pilgrim and Native
American costumes and other Thanksgiving art, sailing on the
Mayflower (sit on tables, catch the wind in our sails (paper), Spray
with sea spray (water bottle spray) and learn that when we see
land through our spy glasses (rolled paper tubes), we shout, LAND
HO!!), seeing how the Pilgrims and Native Americans lived in the
1600s

Unit Content:
Monday: Art (assistants) Indian teepees; I am thankful for...
feather necklaces
Teacher instruction: Discuss the Mayflower voyage dailyread
highlights of the trip and settling at Plymouth Rock:
-Left Plymouth, England in 1609 (3,000 miles)
- Quest for new home escaping religious persecution

- 102 pilgrims on board small ship (90 ft.)

- could only bring what you could fit in a box
- 65 days at sea
- Land in Dec. (Plymouth colony at Plymouth Rock)

Tuesday: Art (assistants) Indian corn art

Teacher instruction: Discuss conditions first winter (1/2 of pilgrims
died); complete building of a colony; meeting of Wampanoag
Indians (91 Indians attended feast).
Wednesday: Art (assistants) Pilgrim faces (boy/girl)
Teacher instruction: Discuss Squanto (spoke English);
teaching/helping pilgrims to hunt & plant.
Thursday: Art (assistants) - Do-A-Dot Turkey/Handprint (10
feathers) Turkey, Turkey, what do you see?
Teacher Instruction: Discuss first Thanksgiving Feasttalk about
things we are thankful for.
Friday: Art (assistants) Cornucopia
Teacher Instruction: Discuss the harvest and make vegetable soup
in celebration of the harvest. Each child will bring an ingredient to
add to the soup.
Monday Tuesday of the following week (week 15): review unit
material and complete art projects. Class feast on Tuesday!
Additional materials:
- Map of Mayflower voyage, popsicle stick Mayflower
- Thanksgiving story books
- Photos of Plymouth colony: what life would have looked like

- Charlie Brown: The Mayflower Compact