Quick Thanksgiving Themed Activities For First Graders

November 13, 2017
We had a couple of random times today for some short Thanksgiving themed activities.


The first graders practiced their fine motor skills by cutting out these words & gluing them in a ABC order. Then they drew illustrations that matched the words.

Then, I needed some math/Thanksgiving activities and these ones I found were perfectly thematic, quick, & super easy to prep!! 


I didn't have the students roll the dice though or use the bingo dots. They just came up with an addition fact that equals 10 & then colored in one of the numbers in the 10 frame & used the cut outs for the other number.


Andrea Sign

All About The Pilgrims & The Wampanoags

November 11, 2017
November has been flying by! I cannot believe that there is only one more week until Thanksgiving Break! 

 There's been a lot of little things popping up into our school schedule that I've been reverting to a "we will get to this lesson when we get to it" mentality more than usual. Usually I teach Pilgrims & Wampanoags in one week...this year it's taking about 2 weeks to fit it all in with scheduling!

We started our unit on Pilgrims by learning all about who the pilgrims were and what life was like on the Mayflower. This is a big research unit for my first graders. 

 To start learning about the pilgrims, I have the students act out what happened. I have some be the separatists/Pilgrims, one be the king, one be the businessmen who funded the Pilgrims journey.


Then, my Mayflower activities have always been a hit, so we did those same activities this year.


After the students make their chests, they watch about 5 minutes of Charlie Brown's voyage. After about 5 minutes, we pause the video and as a class we research more about what the Mayflower was like by reading this book. 


Basically, I read some more pages of the Mayflower book and then the first graders write about it in their own Mayflower books and then continue watching a little more of the video. 


Once they completed their books we talked about how in order to get off the Mayflower the Pilgrims need a smaller boat called a shallop because the water was too shallow. This boat also helped them explore different locations until they settled at Plymouth. We didn't have too much time this day so I had my students work on these shallop puzzles. 

I don't use too many videos in my instruction because I think that real life practicing is more efficient. My first graders do love going on their Mayflower journey with Charlie Brown. I pause the video frequently. When Charlie Brown & his friends are about to get off the Mayflower, I pause the video & my first graders must complete the "Life Of A Pilgrim" activities before we can continue on (and finish) the journey with Charlie Brown. 


Then, we continue learning about life in the New World by reading all about Squanto & the Wampanoag Native American tribe. After we read each section of the book, the students think about 1-2 facts they learned and they write it in their All About The Wampanoag booklets. The students are still working on these books and learning about the Wampanoags.
Andrea Sign

Life on the Mayflower

November 01, 2016
It's November!!

This November I had to go ahead and restructure my plans...normally I do election stuff around President's Day but with the election happening I decided to rearrange and talk about elections in November.  Also, we have a full off for Thanksgiving rather than 3 days...ughhh.  Anyone else have this happening this year?? How do you feel?? I'm feeling like those 2 days before are also a nice time with my students and also that no one else in my family is taking the whole week off so I'm just hanging around for 2 days until we are all ready to go on our family trip on Wednesday.  But may be that's just me...    

Anyway, so I restructured my November plans...
Week 1: Past/Present: Mayflower, Pilgrims & Wampanoags   
Week 2: The forming of America & Elections
Week 3: Thanksgiving Traditions

We started off this week by reviewing the past and present by doing a past and present sorting activity. We did a lot of Past/Present work when we learned about Christopher Columbus so this is just a continuation of that & America's history.

We started by learning about the Mayflower today.  We began by picking up & [[skim]]  reading one of our favorite book series!!

As we read a section of the book, we would jot down fact onto our "Life on the Mayflower" anchor chart.

After we had researched about the Mayflower, what life was like on the Mayflower, and why the Pilgrims went on the Mayflower I told the students it was time for them to pack their chests because they were about to go on their own Mayflower voyage.  They were SO EXCITED!  We reviewed what things the Pilgrims were allowed to take with them & then they were each handed their own chest to pack with things that they would have had in the Pilgrim era.  
Click on the pic above for a free copy of the template.
Once they all had packed their chests, they were told to meet at the carpet.  We happened to do this entire lesson in one day; however, it can easily be split into 2).  We talked about how we were going to pretend the carpet was the Mayflower.  As we sat aboard the Mayflower, we watched the 1st 10 minutes of "Charlie Brown - Mayflower Voyage" - while I do not watch video often, there are so many benefits of using this one!! 

1) It is pretty historically correct
2) Charlie Brown is pretending he was on the Mayflower Voyage - just as the students were
3) The sounds within the media often changed based on the emotions happening - so we paused & talked about what the purpose of the sound was (TEK #16B)
Note: Before we watched, we did talk about how this is a tool to enable us to learn more about long ago & reiterated that they did not have technology back then.
Andrea Sign