|
Summary and Objective
Students will understand that primary documents help us infer what a celebration of Thanksgiving might have been like during a different time period. Students will examine and discuss picture books and web site images and compare their discoveries with what they know about modern Thanksgiving celebrations.
Teaching Plan
Step 1.
In an earlier lesson, ask children to name all of the holidays that they know. List on a chart. Next to this list make columns and label with headings: food, fun and travel. Go through the list of holidays with children and make checks next to each catagory that applies. Children discover that most family holidays have common characteristics.
Step 2.
Give students background information about the history of Thanksgiving. Provide a timeline of these events.
Step 3.
Activate students knowledge by asking them about the song, "Over the River". Tell them that the song is a poem by Lydia Maria Child called "A Boy's Thanksgiving Day". It was written about 200 years after the Pilgrims and Native people celebrated in Plimoth. Refer to the timeline to show the time of the Pilgrims, the early 1800's, and present time. Read the long version of the poem using an overhead projector. Point out or highlight hints about the times.
Step 4.
Tell children that we will investigate some pictures and documents and try to find out what Thanksgiving might have been like when the poem was written. Tell them we will try to find out if Thanksgiving was celebrated with special food, fun and travel like we do today. Show the children the items they will use. Explain that the picture of the sleigh is a photo and was taken at a later time but the sleigh was like one that was used during the time that the poem was written.
Step 5.
Divide the class into groups. Each group is assigned a catagory like food. Using the pictures from the collection and selected pictures from the Currier and Ives site listed below, and picture books like "Over the River and Through the Wood", pictures by Brinton Turkle, (ISBN 0-590-41190-x) children look for evidence in their catagory. As children search the resources, ask questions to focus and extend their thinking. Is there evidence of special food, fun or travel? What were some of the ways people had fun? Do we still do these things? What problems do you think people would have traveling in a sleigh? How do people travel now? How did they travel during the time of the Pilgrims? How are the foods like ones you would have at your Thanksgiving dinner? How were the foods prepared? Groups should record their discoveries by drawing, highlighting or writing.
Step 6.
Small groups report their findings back to the large group. Results could be posted on the Holiday Chart.
Step 7.
To close the activity, children can sing the song together.
Step 8.
Follow-up activities could include reading different illustrated versions of the poem, and/or research biographic information about Lydia Marie Child as a poet/author and discover the political importance of her writing during this time period.
|
