5 Ideas for Including Thanksgiving in Your Homeschool
Published:
October 29, 2019
Contributor:
Carrie
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Is Thanksgiving part of your homeschool studies? Thanksgiving is a great time to study history and focus on gratitude. Here are 5 easy ways you can start including Thanksgiving in your homeschoool.
History
Of course there are the obvious history lessons surrounding Thanksgiving. Encourage your children to answer some of these questions as you dig deeper into the origins of Thanksgiving:
- Why did the Pilgrims leave their homes and come to the New World?
- What was the journey like?
- Who were their leaders?
- What problems did they encounter?
- How many survived?
- What did they eat?
- Who came to their aid?
- What was the first Thanksgiving like?
Take the history lesson a step further and have them make something explaining what they’ve learned.
- Make a news video recounting the events.
- Someone could pretend to be one of the Native Americans or one of the Pilgrims and be interviewed by their sibling.
- Make a lapbook.
- Make placemats for Thanksgiving dinner that have Thanksgiving trivia on them. Be sure to include the answers somewhere.
Thanksgiving Feast
Celebrate Thanksgiving with other homeschool families. Here are a few ideas that might be fun for your feast:
- Each family can bring a dish or two to share.
- Children could dress as Pilgrims or Native Americans.
- Set up a craft station where the children could make a centerpiece to use at their family’s Thanksgiving dinner.
- Encourage everyone to stand up and share what they are thankful for with the group.
- Play games.
Gratitude Journal
Encourage all of your writers to journal about something they are grateful for. Gratitude journals are a great tool to use anytime of the year to help focus their hearts on their many blessings. Plus they’re wonderful for your mama heart too!
Conversation Starters
If your family needs some encouragement thinking about things they have to be thankful for, try using these Gratitude Prompts from the Gratitude Bible Study For Kids. They’ll help get the discussion started and get your children thinking about how truly blessed they are. You can even use conversation starters as writing prompts for their journal.
30 Days of Thankfulness Scriptures
The Bible is full of verses that instruct us to give thanks. Focus on a different verse about giving thanks or praise each day for the month of November.
If you want to learn about America’s Federal Holidays, check out American Holidays Unit Study!
Do you have a difficult time explaining the history behind America’s Federal Holidays to your students? In this unit study you will learn all about the history and traditions of America’s Federal Holidays.
Includes text, questions, written narration, research, quiz, notebooking, and an answer key. Suited to grades 4 & up, but is flexible for family use.
Carrie
Carrie Fernandez is the founder of Homeschool Giveaways and owner of Daily Skill Building. She has been homeschooling for over 18 years, has two girls and works side by side at home with her awesome husband. She has been saved by grace, fails daily, but continues to strive toward the prize of the high calling of being a daughter of the Most High God.
