We did not cover the origins of the American Thanksgiving this year, rather the emotions that are connected to the holiday – being  thankful and together with friends and family. However, I do have some resources to share!

Our Crafts:

• Thanksgiving Tree (Activity Village) HERE
• Paper Turkey (Peapod Labs) HERE
• I am Thankful Pumpkin (Moffatt Girls) HERE
• Horn of Plenty – Gratitude printable (Kids Activities Blog) HERE

Our Worksheets:

• Thanksgiving skip counting (The Homeschool Den) HERE
• Thanksgiving Activity Pack (Itsy Bitsy Learners) HERE (I did not use some of the pages as I was not impressed by the illustrations but they had a nice Mayflower picture and some colour and shape pages that were ok)
• Thanksgiving math and number families (The Homeschool Den) HERE

Lapbooks:

• Thanksgiving Dinner – A Fun Study (Homeschool Bits) HERE

Helpful sites:

• 3 Boys and a Dog reference list HERE
• Cornucopia explanation with more links about Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving-Day.org) HERE
• All things Thanksgiving at Activity Village HERE
• Wild Turkey Facts at NWTF HERE (National Wild Turkey Foundation)

Books:

• An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by Louisa May Alcott HERE
• The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven HERE
• Free emergent readers by The Measured Mom HERE
• Nursery Crimes by Arthur Geisert HERE
• A Thanksgiving Turkey by Julian Scheer HERE

Videos:

• Modern Marvels: The Turkey HERE
• The Land Before Time: The Time of the Great Giving HERE

This is our first year learning about Independence day… so we are going rather topical and trying to see a broad picture and get a handle on a holiday that is 100% new to us! We had 3 different files we used… Currclick has a great speedy lapbook from homeschool bits HERE. It is just 1.00. We also used Gift of Curiosity’s site HERE. The Simple Homeschool also has a file we found a while ago. You can access their site HERE. Lulu Marketplace also has a freebie HERE.

Helpful printables:

• Activity Village has a selection of printables etc on their site HERE.
• Lots of great stuff on Lapbook Lessons HERE.
• Mini book with DLTK HERE.
• I have a collection on Education.com for Independence Day HERE. I will rate all the ones I use before  the end of our unit.
• A free file from 2 Teaching Mommies HERE.
• LapbookLessons is also very helpful HERE.
• Maps on Free US and World Maps.com HERE.
• Cute journalling pages thanks to Education to the Core HERE.

Crafts:

• The Little Sewing Shop has a way to make your own firework like thing HERE.
• We made flag fans by decorating paper and then doing an accordion fold before stapling the base.
• I cannot find the instructions anymore, but we made fireworks on paper using paint, a plastic lid and a hammer… you put globs of paint on the paper (we used poster board), place a plastic lid on top of it and smack it with a hammer… SPLAT firework!
• We made patriotic shakers (well they would have been if the kids had stuck with red white and blue)… two plastic cups, with beads inside, use a coloured masking tape to tape them together and decorate with stickers. Thanks to Lakeshore Learning store for that free craft! (HERE is the store site)

Books:

• Independence Day by Helen Frost HERE
• Independence Day by Marc Tyler Nobleman HERE
• Red, White, and Boom! by Lee Wardlaw HERE
• Celebrate Independence Day by Deborah Heiligman HERE
• Independence Day by Elaine Landau HERE
• Independence Day by Ann Heinrichs HERE
• Calendar Mysteries: July Critters by Ron Roy HERE
• Independence Day Crafts by Mary Berendes and Jean Eick HERE