Just a quick note – Activity Village has gone to membership, we found it rather reasonable and so paid in. This means I will still be posting their links. Some things are free, I will try to remember to indicate what is in the future! 

I let the twins chose a unit study for history to start out their new year. This has been a mixed success as the time it took to work on this unit was longer than expected and had us running into seasonal projects. So I do need to work on amping up our time on US history and ignoring some of the softer “fun” topics.

I looked all over for a good free lapbook resource to no avail. So we splurged and got a lapbook from Currclick – Slavery in North America by Hands of a Child. It was worth every penny!

Of course I requested books from the library:

• Freedom From Slavery by Brianna Hall
• Slavery: The Struggle for Freedom by James Meadows
• Many Thousands Gone by Virginia Hamilton
• Frederick Douglass by Suzanne Slade
• Slavery in the United States by Rebecca Rissman
• Passenger on the Pearl by Winifred Conkling

Instead of covering Thanksgiving once again and going into massive detail on a first meal that may or may not (most likely NOT) happened as it has been repeated along with all sorts of cultural issues we focused on one thing this year – The Mayflower. We decided to make a fact poster and still do a few fun Thanksgiving themed worksheets.

We used the following library books:

• You Wouldn’t Want to Sail on the Mayflower (A Trip That Took Entirely Too Long) by Peter Cook
• The Mayflower Compact by Judith Lloyd Yero
• Mayflower 1620 by Plimoth Plantations
• We also requested, but did not get to – The Mayflower and the Pilgrims’ New World by Nathaniel Philbrick which looked rather interesting.

For worksheets do check out Activity Village’s Thanksgiving sheets HERE, Education.com has my Thanksgiving folder HERE and EnchantedLearning is a great help HERE (this is a link to my search results). I would suggest lots of google searches but those are my three go to sites (some membership fees to access everything are required for Education.com and EnchantedLearning).

Our Mayflower fact poster

Well I am clearing up my emails as I work on the blog, sewing and school… so what do I come across but my emails to myself about Thanksgiving! And Remembrance Day to boot! Well I figured I might as well share the helpful links here. If nothing else, the next time I search Thanksgiving or Remembrance Day here on the blog to find useful resources I will be in luck!

• Kids National Geographic and their interpretation of the first Thanksgiving HERE
• Social Studies for Kids and their thoughts on the Mayflower HERE
• Reading With Kids turkey colour by letters HERE
• Havefunteaching.com Harvest Festival explanation HERE
• Kids Puzzles and Games Harvest Festival Puzzle Sheet HERE
• Busy Teacher Thankful Tree Leaves writing template HERE
• Teachers Pay Teachers Thanksgiving fun page HERE
• Crewsnest Harvest Festival run down HERE

Remembrance Day!

• Words of Remembrance Day cards through Activity Village HERE
• Homeschooling.About.Com Veterans Day word search HERE
• Parenting.Leehansen.com poppy colouring page HERE

A Halloween bonus!

• Happy Home Fairy Pumpkin game HERE

A taste of fall to enjoy at the end. Minnesota has some amazing colour in the fall.

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