Concept Week #19: Thanksgiving

This unit was pretty book and craft heavy! We did our usual assorted worksheet pages of math, mazes, dot-to-dots, etc. However, there were some reading comprehension pages (yes, yes, yes - from education.com) about the first Thanksgiving as well as the Pilgrims and the Native Americans, including Squanto. So they learned a bit about that. Then we had another book debate, which Berenstain Bears book to read? In the end, I read both: The Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings by Stan & Jan Berenstain (a thunderstorm comes to Bear Country and the power goes out, so the Bear family sits in the dark and thinks about what they are thankful for) and The Berenstain Bears Give Thanks by Jan & Mike Berenstain (the Bear family celebrates Thanksgiving, but Sister Bear wants to keep the turkey Squanto as a pet, not make him the main course on the big day).

Optimus Prime & Bumblebee also helped make food for Thanksgiving. They helped with the pumpkin pies, and this recipe for Succotash (which, I had never heard of before but I found in a kids Thanksgiving cookbook) they made all by themselves (except for the cutting).

Succotash Recipe:
2 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp butter
1 bell pepper (any color)
2 cups frozen lima beans
2 cups frozen corn
salt and pepper to taste

1. Chop up the bell pepper
2. Melt butter in saucepan
3. Add bell pepper and cook for 2 minutes
4. Add broth, lima beans, and corn
5. Bring to a boil
6. Lower heat and simmer 15-20 minutes until broth is absorbed
7. Add salt and pepper to taste and enjoy

I also found a Thanksgiving activity book online for them that they could print up, staple together, and do, so they had fun with that. Then, I considered the unit closed, but when I went to the library to take out books for our upcoming Native American unit I found a book on Squanto, so we read that too. It was Squanto: The Pilgrim Adventure by Kate Jassem. It was pretty good for a kids book. While it was watered down, it wasn't overly watered down. It talked about how he was abducted and sold into slavery, how he came back to North America to find all of his tribe dead, etc. It was a sad story, but a good one.

The unit wound up being a bit more work than I thought it would be, however it was definitely one of our more successful units!