Social Studies: Holidays

Thanksgiving provided us with a natural learning opportunity for studying holiday traditions, especially the history that forms holiday traditions and how such holidays are celebrated by different people in our present day time.  In our room, a favorite activity this year was the making of a Thanksgiving book titled Turkey, Turkey What Do You See? based on the familiar text structure in Eric Carle's book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  Our book recounts the main historical events that define how Thanksgiving began.  Each page in the book was a culminating activity to a history lesson explaining the actions of people who lived many years ago, but whose actions affect how we celebrate the holiday today. 

Each page in the book is cut and glue paper design... after an initial step by step review, students had to gather their own supplies, cut each shape and assemble the parts.  Best of all, students had to share materials, solve problems and help one another as they completed each page.

We read non-fiction and literary non-fiction titles to support our learning.

Happy and engaged learners!

Oh, how they love to glue... learning to use just enough glue, too!

Once the book was assembled, students added details and words with markers.

As we studied the lives of native americans and pilgrims, students were surprised to learn of the similarities and differences in how children lived daily life compared to their own present day life. They were shocked to learn the pilgrims children did not go to school, rather had to help with the chores of daily living.

Pine cone turkeys: we made this art activity during math, focusing on shapes and patterns.

More turkey math: they played several rounds of the turkey drawing game with partners.  We hope you got to try playing this game at home, too!