All About Thanksgiving

It’s beginning to look a lot like….truthfully, Christmas!!! Everywhere I look we’ve skipped straight over Thanksgiving and gone right to the twinky lights (which are admittedly my favorite), trees in store window displays, and The Elf is back in stock at the North Pole…AKA Target. 😉 But for at least two more weeks our classroom is going to be looking a lot like THANKSGIVING!!

Case in point, the giant Mayflower graph that got hung up this past Friday while we were busy learning all about these new people called the Pilgrims. We read about them as we started lesson one in my new  unit, Thanksgiving {Thanksgiving For The Common Core Classroom}. After we learned why the Pilgrims decided to leave England, my students had to use what they had learned to decide what they would choose to do if they were a Pilgrim. There was indeed one lone solider who was pretty sure he was not up for the trip!

 I’ve have been working on this latest “For The Common Core Classroom” unit these past two weeks. Every time I thought it was done, I had another idea to add. Well put a fork in me please because it’s finally done!!! And it’s stuffed full of historical fun and ELA standards!!

Those of you who have been following me for awhile know how much I love to integrate Science & Social Studies content into my ELA reading & writing standards. This unit is no exception! Every lesson comes with an accompanying Text Passage & Reading Detectives question sheet.

Students need to use their reading detective skills to go back into the text and find the “evidence” they need to answer each question on their sheet. I like to have my kids use a highlighter to locate their evidence before they respond to the questions.

If you’re looking to dive into some Thanksgiving studies with your crew, I hope this can makes your planning life just a little bit easier!!

 I also hit up my local Barnes and Nobel last week to pick up fresh copies of some old favorites and two new books to go along with our research. My class cheered (literally) when I showed them the latest addition to our Pete the Cat collection. Pete books are a pretty hot commodity in our room all year long.  All of these books are chocked full of great facts about the Pilgrims, the Wampanoags, and the first Thanksgiving. So far a favorite class fact that we’ve read is that the Pilgrims did not believe in taking baths!

We’ll also be using my Don’t Eat The Turkey pack this week to start building our persuasive writing skills. It has received a little facelift since last year so if you already own it, please go re-download to get the updated version!! 🙂