Thanksgiving Hands-On Learning Ideas

Thanksgiving provides a beautiful opportunity for some natural learning in our homes. If you are looking for some great hands-on learning activities to incorporate this Thanksgiving or some great books to share with your children, read on.

With history being re-written (and this has been going on for years) it can be so easy for our children to grow up thinking that Thanksgiving is all about eating turkey and pie and watching football.

But why do we celebrate Thanksgiving? I love pointing my children to the story of the Pilgrims and their desire to raise their families and worship the Lord as they felt led. It was a long–complicated journey that had many twists and turns. As my kids got older, we talked about how many days of “thanksgiving” were celebrated each harvest season and the role Abraham Lincoln played in making the fourth Thursday of every November an official time of Thanksgiving.

This time of year provides the perfect time for natural learning. And my favorite way to do this is through enchanting children’s books and a few hands on activities to cement what we are learning about into long term memory! Here are a few of our favorite activities from over the years! The opportunities are endless from learning about the events that prompted the pilgrims to leave England for Holland and then to the New World, the journey over on the Mayflower, or the challenges and opportunities they encountered when arriving.

Reading books provides the context, the information. We need that. But children need something more. They need to get up and move. They need to involve BOTH their imaginations and their bodies. You don’t need to do all of these, but a few activities goes such a long way in the learning process.

Mayflower Nut – a tutorial

This is one of my all-time favorites. It is a child-friendly, eye-appealing, EASY project. It is always a huge hit.  My kids loved playing with them and they doubled for beautiful decorations!

Mapping the Mayflower

Our adventure mapping the journey of the Mayflower and reviewing why they left the Old World for the New World. Here it is pictured with my old hand-painted world mat. Now my daughter plays with her walnut Mayflower boats on the GO GLOBAL game that we have available in the shop!

Mayflower Living for Wee Folks

It’s one thing to read about life aboard the Mayflower, but another thing entirely to enter in and live some of it.  Our favorite activity was dressing up and pretending to be kids on the journey over.  We ate food similar to what they ate (w/out the bugs, mold and extent of staleness) and slept in a replica we made of a family’s quarters on the Mayflower.  The boys loved it.  I for one am glad we don’t live at that time and that I have a nice king-sized bed!

 Of Measuring and Comparing

Along with learning about the Mayflower, one year my oldest was learning about the story of Noah at church.  We seized the opportunity to gain  perspective by going outside to measure the dimensions of both the Mayflower and Noah’s Ark.  Even if you don’t want to compare it to Noah’s great ark, taking the time to to out and measure the dimension of the Mayflower and discussing how many people travelled on that boat will help your children understand the difficulties involved with this trip. It was no cruise ship.

Life at Plymouth

Learning abut life at Plymouth is important. Here are some ideas to get your creative juices flowing in regards to planting corn, learning about how instrumental Squanto’s help was, having a make-believe hunt, etc…

Turkey-Gratitude Countdown