Thanksgiving Ideas for the Classroom + A Freebie

November could not arrive fast enough! I love the cooler days, leaves changing colors, and the extra special time with family and friends.

With the holiday season just around the corner, I decided to join a few of my blogging friends to bring you a linky full of freebies and a giveaway you are going to want to gobble up in a hurry!

One of my favorite activities to do with my students is to teach them about Pilgrim life, their voyage on the Mayflower, and how the first Thanksgiving came to be. I love to bring these concepts to life through the Scholastic First Thanksgiving website. There are several videos to choose from, depending on the age of your students. They do a great job bringing the content to life for my students. If you haven't checked out these videos, head over now! You will love using them.

After we watch a couple of the videos, I like to complete a follow up activity about main idea and details. As a class, we brainstorm ideas for a main idea about the voyage on the Mayflower. Then, we chart all the details they can remember about the voyage, which support the main idea we generated together. The children use the turkey template below to show off their skills. They write the main idea on the body of the turkey and an important detail on each of the feathers. You can also choose your favorite Thanksgiving story to use, if you decide not to use the videos.

This activity makes a festive display in our classroom, all while integrating social studies and language arts skills! You can grab your FREE template HERE!

I also like to share stories about Pilgrim life with my students. They always find it interesting to learn about how Pilgrim children lived long ago.

After we read one of our Pilgrim books, we create a flip book to go along with it. The children focus on the characters, setting, and plot of the story. We create a chart, as a class, with their ideas. Then, they work in pairs to complete their flip book.

Each student also creates a Pilgrim boy or girl to display with their flip books. These make for a great writing display too!

This is another fun activity I like to do with my students to review math skills. We are usually working on place value and addition and subtraction skills during this time of the year. I have my students complete these word problems during our morning warm up time. Next, they color and attach the turkey and add feet to the bottom of their page. They love seeing their working hanging all around the room.