The First Thanksgiving
Emma and I are still plugging along with homeschooling, and it seems to be going quite well. She is very attentive, and enjoys sitting and listening to all the stories, which is good since our curriculum is literature based…We do school early in the morning, and are often done by 9:30am, which is great! Although, there are definitely times when Emma wants to keep going, so I have been trying to fill in with some more seasonal readings.
Yesterday we started a unit on the First Thanksgiving. I say unit, but that might not be the correct word. I don’t have a unit all planned out, we are kind of just going with the flow and going wherever her questions lead.
We started out by using the history book we have from her curriculum. It is the Usborne Internet Linked Children’s Encyclopedia. I really like this book. It has just enough to get an overview of different subjects and gets the kids to ask questions. After we read about the First Thanksgiving, I decided to look for some information from Plimoth Plantation.
Growing up in New England, it was one of the first really big field trips we took when I was in elementary school. I fell in love with it immediately. All those people living history. Very cool. It is still one of my favorite places to visit.
There are some amazing online resources about the people who settled at Plimoth and also about the Wampanoag Tribe and how they worked together. This year there is also a video on the First Thanksgiving. We haven’t watched it yet, but it is on our list for today.
Some other activities we have on the agenda leading up to Thanksgiving are making a menu of what would have been on the First Thanksgiving menu, as well as trying our hand (or Emma’s) at making dolls and clothes for the dolls and little boats which is what the Wampanoag children did to learn the skills they needed when they were older.
And since today is election day, we will also be taking a field trip up to our polling place to cast my vote. I have done this for every election since Emma was born, and she really enjoys going. It is a little crazier now with the two, but the ladies always enjoy watching me try to wrangle them into the biggest booth I can find!
Are you doing a Thanksgiving unit? Have you started yet? Do you do something special for voting?
I am linking up at Hip Homeschool Hop
The kids really do find voting fascinating – my boys loved it!
We spent our morning with lots of talk about Thanksgiving and it's meaning as well. We made the little paper turkeys and talked about the feast. Off to vote now! Good luck with your two "helpers"