Thanksgiving  Activities                                                     

Also check out my Thanksgiving Resources
Picture
Web Weaver's Free Clip Art. 'Pilgrim Hat'. 2010
1.  How far is it from your town or city to Plymouth, Massachusetts? 
Use mapquest to complete the following directions:

  • Find the shortest route and determine the mileage and hours the trip would take.
  • Choose a historic monument that you would like to see and plan your trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts around visiting the monument.  Determine the mileage and hours the trip would take in visiting the monument on the way to Plymouth. 

Another twist on this activity without the use of technology and using maps to chart the trip:

Imagine that you work for mapquest and your task is to draw and write the directions of the route from your home to Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

  1. You must include the number of miles the trip would take and the hours/minutes based on the assumption that you could travel 60 miles in 60 minutes.  
  2. In the written directions, you must write precise directions using the names of roads, interstates, etc.,  and cardinal directions.

2.  Choose a passenger from the Mayflower passenger list and write a narrative about his or her trip to Plymouth
        on the Mayflower.  (This could be also posted to a wiki or blog.)

3.  Look at the holiday stamps at the U.S. Postal Service and design a Thanksgiving stamp.

4.  Discover what you know about Thanksgiving and try to increase your knowledge of Thanksgiving:

  1.       Use a KWL Chart to write down what you know about Thanksgiving and what you would like to know. 
  2.      Read the following resources: The First Thanksgiving, and Daily Life in 1621.
  3.       Complete the KWL Chart by writing what you have learned about Thanksgiving.

To increase the level of rigor: 
     
Compare the lives of the Wampanoag, the Pilgrims and Present day Children's Lives with the Daily Life Matrix.

5. Planning a Menu for Thanksgiving:

Use one or more of the following recipe and grocery store sites to complete the following assignment.


The Assignment:
(This activity could be implemented without technology and using newspaper grocery advertisements)

According to Arkansas Farm Bureau's annual survey it will cost a family of 10, on average, $39.61 per person to prepare a Thanksgiving dinner this year. 

In this assignment, you are to imagine that you are preparing Thanksgiving dinner for 10 members of your family or friends. You must create a menu, and find recipes to complete a shopping list. Your budget for the dinner is $39.61.  Your dinner must include at least:

Meat or Main Course
Side Dishes
Desserts

The goal is to see how many dishes you can include in your dinner and come as close to spending $39.61 without going over that amount. 

Recipe Sites

Allrecipes

FoodNetwork

Betty Crocker

epicurious

Cooking.com


Grocery Store Advertisements


Kroger

Harps Food Stores

Country Mart

Aldi

WalMart SuperCenter

Save-A-Lot

Tools to Foster Creativity

These are just a few of the tools available that could be implemented into the activities above or used to create presentations or timelines around the theme of Thanksgiving.

Prezi - Create a presentation
Bubbl.us - Brainstorming tool
PrimaryPad - Web-based word processor
Museum Box - Create a museum box
Glogster - Create a poster
BigHugeLabs - Host of tools
Woices - Ex. Tour of historic Memphis
CloudCanvas - Create digital media
PhotoPeach - Create slideshows