Description
What our Holidays: Thanksgiving lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Holidays: Thanksgiving is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn about the traditions and history of a well-known holiday. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the yellow box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. For this lesson, the only supplies that you need are the handouts. You can prepare for this lesson ahead of time by pairing students for the activity and copying the handouts.
Teacher Notes
The paragraph on this page provides a little more information or guidance on what to expect from the lesson. It explains that you can teach this lesson in a whole-class setting or as an independent, small-group activity. You can use the blank lines to record any thoughts or ideas you have as you prepare.
HOLIDAYS: THANKSGIVING LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
What Is Thanksgiving?
The Holidays: Thanksgiving lesson plan includes three content pages. Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated every year in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It is a time when families and friends gather to share a special meal and give thanks for the good things in their lives. Many people also watch parades or football games, volunteer in their communities, or spend time with loved ones. Although Thanksgiving is celebrated in many different ways today, its history began more than 400 years ago.
Plymouth Colony Feast
The story of the “first” Thanksgiving is connected to a harvest celebration in the fall of 1621 near Plymouth Colony in what is now southeastern Massachusetts. (Some states point to earlier events as the first Thanksgiving in North America. However, the Plymouth harvest celebration is the one most closely connected to the modern US Thanksgiving holiday.) About 50 English settlers, later called the Pilgrims, had traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to begin a new life in America. Their first year was extremely difficult. Many became sick, and nearly half of the settlers died during their first winter. By the following autumn, however, they had successfully grown crops and were ready to celebrate their harvest.
Now, the settlers could not have survived without help from the Wampanoag people, who had lived in the region for thousands of years. A Native American named Samoset surprised the settlers by greeting them in English, which he had learned earlier from fishermen and traders. Soon after, Squanto taught them how to grow corn, catch fish, and use the land’s natural resources. The Wampanoag leader Massasoit worked with the settlers to help keep peace between their communities. Their cooperation played an important role in the colony’s survival.
During the harvest celebration in 1621, about 90 Wampanoag people joined the English settlers for a feast that lasted three days. Historians believe the Wampanoag came after hearing gunfire because they thought the settlers might be preparing for battle. When they discovered the settlers were celebrating instead, they contributed food to the gathering. Together they shared meals, played games, and spent time with one another during the harvest festival.
What to Eat
The foods served at the 1621 celebration were different from the Thanksgiving meals many families enjoy today. Historians believe the feast included venison, ducks, geese, shellfish, fish, corn, and other foods that were available in the area. While wild turkeys lived nearby, there is no evidence that turkey was served. Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce were also not part of the original feast because the settlers did not yet have the ingredients necessary to prepare those dishes.
Although many people think the 1621 feast was the first Thanksgiving, the people who attended did not call it Thanksgiving. The first recorded day that the Plymouth settlers called a “thanksgiving” took place in 1623 after a long drought ended with much-needed rain. On that day, they gathered to give thanks to God for helping their crops grow. Over time, days of thanksgiving were celebrated in different colonies for many different reasons.
Making the Holiday a Holiday
For many years, Thanksgiving was celebrated only in certain states or communities. Several presidents suggested setting aside a day of thanks, but there was no official national holiday. A magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale believed Thanksgiving should unite the country. She spent many years writing letters to government leaders and encouraging them to create a national celebration.
In 1863, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday. He encouraged Americans to pause and give thanks for the blessings they still shared, even during a difficult time in the nation’s history. Since then, Thanksgiving has been celebrated every year across the United States. Today, families create their own traditions while remembering the importance of gratitude.
Over the years, many stories about the first harvest celebration have become popular, but not all of them are accurate. The English settlers probably did not wear black clothing with shiny silver buckles, and the Wampanoag did not wear large feathered headdresses. Historians believe both groups dressed differently than they are often shown in books and movies. Learning the facts helps people better understand the real history behind Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving Today
Today, Thanksgiving is both a holiday and a time for reflection. Some families say a prayer before eating. Some take turns telling the others around the table what they are thankful for. Many communities hold food drives to help people in need. These traditions remind people that Thanksgiving is not only about food but also about showing gratitude and caring for others. Families might prepare traditional meals, travel, volunteer, or simply enjoy spending time together. Although traditions have changed over the centuries, the holiday continues to remind people of the importance of gratitude, generosity, and community.
HOLIDAYS: THANKSGIVING LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Holidays: Thanksgiving lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a practice worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson. You can refer to the classroom procedure guidelines to know when to hand out each worksheet.
THANKSGIVING FOODS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
Students will work in pairs to create three Thanksgiving meals. They will use foods from two lists: Thanksgiving foods from 1621 and Thanksgiving foods from today. They have to include a certain number of drinks, meats, fish, vegetables, and more for each meal. The three meals they will create are a 1621 meal, today’s meal, and a meal that includes food items from both time periods. Students can also work alone or in groups of three for this activity if you want them to do so.
HOLIDAYS: THANKSGIVING REVIEW PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet requires students to answer a series of 10 questions. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them often for the answers. In addition, each question provides which reading tool the question corresponds to, such as text feature, vocabulary, or comprehension.
Worksheet Answer Keys
At the end of the lesson plan document is an answer key for the practice worksheet. The correct answers are all in red to make it easier for you to compare them with students’ responses. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
