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

December 2-4

Time to start Advent in earnest with the first Monday of the month. But first we had to finish off our Thankful poster. It is now full of things we are thankful for. One item for every day in November leading up to and including Thanksgiving Day. It will now make its home on a wall in the boys’ room.

I am so glad I put our Perler bead Advent calendar where I could find it this year! We have had this one for years and years and the kids just love taking the different shapes and putting them on the board each night. THEY remind ME! For those keeping track, this is Advent calendar #2!

We have jumped into our Christmas/Advent themed worksheets with both feet. I am getting MOST of these from our favourite crafting and print out site – Activity Village. Their link is on right.

It also gives me a chance to introduce our THIRD Advent calendar – a paperchain we tear the rings off each night. I printed off the Activity Village version that had the numbers and lines to trim on ready to go but you could just cut the papers.

We hit midweek with weather that allowed the boys outside to play in the snow. It is funny. Alberta has been hit hard by cold and snow… us way less so!

Of course we had to enjoy a Wild Kratts that covered an animal we had not yet made a mini poster for!

Burrowing Owls

BUT the big excitement stemmed from our assembly of our Thanksgiving unit into a lovely duotang. There was so much to enjoy revisiting and a lovely stack of finished work to compliment each other over. You can find our resources HERE.

Completion in wake of beginning Advent… the best of both worlds!

Remember to check Art for Kids for thematic how tos on drawing and more… link on right.

November 29-December 1

Well, here in the US Thanksgiving is on a Thursday… so confusing. Why not a Friday or a Monday? While it is not a government holiday the Friday after IS a holiday for many places. And of course it is BLACK FRIDAY… a huge shopping day when a lot of deals are there for the grabbing. Ken and I did minimal shopping with a quick trip out to our local and honestly not so busy (comparison wise) Target. Yesterday’s post of the lovely Christmas matching dresses (HERE) was one of our finds as was a couple gifts on the kids’ Christmas list that were must have and long requested and on sale!

We did our minimum of basic schooling  before the cousins arrived for a weekend visit. Of course we put the willing and somewhat willing hands to work making more little hats to go on the Christmas tree. Nana sure can motivate!

On Friday

And again on Saturday

Echo snuck her time on the computer playing Minecraft… though I am not sure how far she made it, she did enjoy it!

On Saturday the girls enjoyed a cozy tea party.

Echo dressed up for the part in one of her favourite “blue dress” dresses.

Bit of an Alice in Wonderland feel

The weather held out long enough for the kids to spend some time in the backyard. Coats are now a definite necessity!

We started December with the whole family heading to church. There was no Sunday School as it was Thanksgiving weekend. It was not a full service but we enjoyed it. Sitting in the back with crayons and paper and attempting to be patient is always a bit of a struggle but I think we didn’t do too badly.

They had a fair for Advent the day before and there were special treat bags for the kids left over so they gave them out at the end of the service. We had 5 very excited kids when that happened!

With it being the beginning of Advent we started our calendars counting down. We have THREE! Trinity’s is a Santa face where you fill in the beard with cotton balls.

The girls got their Christmas vibe on with some pretty picture making. I love stickers and buy up the 1.00 books whenever I come across them!

Super fuzzy sorry!

And that was that. We are done with Thanksgiving (resource and book work to follow) and onto Advent and the days to Christmas are ticking by!!! Where has the time and the year gone?????