Holidays and Events

Archive for the ‘November’ Category

If you’re planning a Thanksgiving party in the classroom, there are a myriad of games you can have the children play that will be fun but also educational and useful in teaching the concept of being thankful.

Be careful not to overdo the turkey aspect of Thanksgiving. Some children forget that it’s about more than the turkey. Playing some fun games can help them remember the purpose of Thanksgiving.

Try a gratitude bag. Fill the bag with several cards, each with something on it. Some will say “Thanksgiving” while others will have a word or picture of other things. Some of those other things might be cars, food, clothes, etc. Have the children sit in a circle and draw a card out of the bag. If they get a card that has a picture or word on it other than “Thanksgiving” they should talk about why they are thankful for that item and why others should be as well.

For example, if the child choose “shoes”, they might express how thankful they are that they have shoes so their feet stay clean and they don’t get cold in the winter and they stay unharmed when they are walking. Depending on the ages of the children, this might be a simple response or something a little more involved once they understand the concept better.

If they draw the “car” card, they might comment on how nice it is to have a car and not have to take the bus, or how nice it is that their mom can pick them up from school so they don’t have to walk home everyday. With help from the teacher or a parent, they might even note that in many parts of the world, people don’t have cars (or shoes) and that they are lucky to have all these things.

If the child chooses a card that says “Thanksgiving” they should come up with an original idea about something they are thankful for. Try to steer them away from things like “Playstation” but instead steer them toward things like “my parents” and “my house and my room”.

For some thinking fun, have kids do a word find with Thanksgiving words. Provide them with a list of words related to Thanksgiving. They might be “Thanksgiving”, “Cornucopia”, “Mayflower”, “Turkey”, etc. Then they must find words contained in those words.

So, if the word is “Mayflower”, they might find words like “lay”, “flower”, “flow” and the like. “Thanksgiving” might turn into “thank”, “sing”, and “an”. See which child can find the most words in the list of words you provide them. Try to challenge the kids to find words within the words that relate back to Thanksgiving.

The old memory game is always fun and can be used for Thanksgiving too. Have the children sit in a circle and have someone start the game by saying, “At Thanksgiving, I like to eat” and then finish it with one food item. So that child might say, “At Thanksgiving, I like to eat turkey”, and the next child will say, “At Thanksgiving, I like to eat turkey and cranberry sauce.” The next child would continue with, “At Thanksgiving, I like to eat turkey and cranberry sauce and green beans.”

Each child will carry on until the list becomes so long, someone is sure to forget an item. You can either start the game over or keep going until everyone is out but one child.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday! What a spiritual renewal to take a day to reflect over the past year about just how good God has been to you and your family, to give you harvest and shelter, health and hope. To get the most out of this joyous occasion, make some holiday crafts with your children. These days, Thanksgiving often gets squeezed out by Halloween’s spooky decorations and the lights and gala of Christmas. With the following holiday crafts, your home can be decorated for this quieter but important celebration.

Turkeys are a natural choice for decorations. A familiar project at this time of year is for a child to trace around her hand and make the resulting drawing into a turkey. The thumb is the head and the fingers are the tail feathers all displayed. While many of the turkeys that are raised for food are now the domestic white variety, the turkeys eaten by the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving were the wild brown ones. The tail feathers on a wild turkey are brown, but they are iridescent. catching light and appearing to be multi-colored. This is why children color the tail feathers in bright colors.

The turkey’s head has a wattle under the beak. This is a vertical flap of loose skin that is red colored. Be sure to draw this in order to make the hand turkey look like a turkey. Add skinny legs and bird feet. When done, the children can cut out the turkeys and hang them on the wall. It’s really cute to make a whole flock of these turkeys in the sizes of all the hands in the family. The little hand shapes are particularly sweet.

Another nice turkey decoration to make when making Thanksgiving holiday crafts is a turkey door decoration. Make a brown construction paper body and head of a turkey. Now make a large number of colored feather shapes. Each family member writes on a feather something he or she is thankful for before attaching as part of the turkey’s tail. Repeat until all the feathers are used, and hang the turkey on the front door to greet visitors with a message of gratitude. Make a sign to accompany the turkey that says “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good!” or simply “Be thankful!” or “We’re thankful for you!” or whatever you like.

Children love making construction paper chains. To further decorate the house for Thanksgiving, let them make a paper chain in fall colors as one of their holiday crafts. Using 9 by 12 inch construction paper, cut the paper in half across the long side and cut the halves into one inch thick six inch long strips. Use a stapler to attach the ends of the strip into a circle. Loop the next strip into the circle and staple it. Continue the process alternating colors of brown, red, yellow, and orange. When the chains are long, you can drape them along the ceiling or stair rail. If you don’t make the door turkey, the children can write something they’re thankful for on each strip of paper before adding it to the chain.

Thanksgiving is too nice a holiday to let the other more commercial holidays crowd it out. By making holiday crafts to decorate the home for Thanksgiving, you can keep this day special, too. The extended family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc., will be pleased to see the holiday crafts the young ones have made to decorate the house and make it cheerful for their visit.

by Lydia Maria Child (1844)

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather’s house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to Grandfather’s house away!
We would not stop for doll or top,
for ’tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood—
oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
as over the ground we go.

Over the river, and through the wood.
with a clear blue winter sky,
The dogs do bark and the children hark,
as we go jingling by.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to have a first-rate play.
Hear the bells ring, “Ting a ling ding!”
Hurray for Thanskgiving Day!

Over the river, and through the wood—
no matter for winds that blow;
Or if we get the sleigh upset
into a bank of snow.

Over the river, and through the wood,
to see little John and Ann;
We will kiss them all, and play snowball
and stay as long as we can.

Over the river, and through the wood,
trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound!
For ’tis Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river, and through the wood
and straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow—
it is so hard to wait!

Over the river, and through the wood—
Old Jowler hears our bells;
He shakes his paw with a loud bow-wow,
and thus the news he tells.

Over the river, and through the wood—
when Grandmother sees us come,
She will say, “O, dear, the children are here,
bring pie for everyone.”

Over the river, and through the wood—
now Grandmother’s cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

by Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)

The sun hath shed its kindly light,
Our harvesting is gladly o’er,
Our fields have felt no killing blight,
Our bins are filled with goodly store.

From pestilence, fire, ‘flood, and sword
We have been spared by thy decree,
And now with humble hearts, O Lord,
We come to pay our thanks to thee.

We feel that had our merits been
The measure of thy gifts to us,
We erring children, born of sin,
Might not now be rejoicing thus.

No deed of ours hath brought us grace;
When thou wert nigh our sight was dull,
We hid in trembling from thy face,
But thou, O God, wert merciful.

Thy mighty hand o’er all the land
Hath still been open to bestow
Those blessings which our wants demand
From heaven, whence all blessings flow.

Thou hast, with ever watchful eye,
Looked down on us with holy care,
And from thy storehouse in the sky
Hast scattered plenty everywhere.

Then lift we up our songs of praise
To thee, O Father, good and kind;
To thee we consecrate our days;
Be thine the temple of each mind.

With incense sweet our thanks ascend;
Before thy works our powers pall;
Though we should strive years without end,
We could not thank thee for them all.

If you’re hosting a family Thanksgiving, you  will want to create a fun environment that will help children understand the importance of thankfulness and send a gentle reminder to the adults of  this as well.

Since Thanksgiving comes just before what many refer to as the “greedy” season, activities designed to remind people of the bounty in their lives are useful. For example, you might help children understand that while they don’t have everything they want, they do have everything they need.

There are several ways to do this.

First, help the children create a cornucopia centerpiece, which will sit on the Thanksgiving table.  One way of doing this would be to make a papier-mâché cornucopia using a balloon as the base to help you get the shape started.  Alternately, you could simply take large piece of poster board and shape it into a cone and fill it with whatever you like. As an extra activity, the  children can decorate the cornucopia before it is filled.

Since the idea of the cornucopia is to celebrate a abundance and appreciate that bounty, you can fill it as is traditionally done with squash, corn and the like. You might ask each member of the family to bring something that represents their personal bounty in life.

A new mom might bring a baby blanket to put in the cornucopia while a newly retired grandpa might add a picture of his family, since that’s what’s most important to him. You can discuss the items in the cornucopia basket at the dinner table while enjoying your Thanksgiving feast.

Another family activity that kids like is the thankfulness jar. When each person arrives at dinner, they place a note with something they are thankful for in the jar. Ideally, each person will add more than one item to the jar.  At dinner, someone (ideally, the matriarch of patriarch of the family) reads the notes. Everyone tries to figure out who wrote which note.

The items can range from the serious (someone who struggled with an illness in the previous year might be thankful for life, quite simply) to the silly (the new mom might be thankful there’s a Starbucks within 5 minutes of her home). Kids enjoy adding their own touches to the thankfulness jar and their responses are often a surprise to the adult family members.

Some families have several tables set about at Thanksgiving. Many people buy professional floral arrangements to decorate the tables. You can make a game out of it to figure out who’s going to get to bring home the table arrangement to their home.

You can do the old wedding thing and simply put a number on the bottom of the centerpiece and have someone’s chair match that number or you can make a game and perhaps create a trivia game out of Thanksgiving facts. For example, questions might look like this:
*How many turkeys are cooked on Thanksgiving throughout the US?
*Why are turkeys called turkeys?
*Which president set aside the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving?

Be sure you research and know the answers and then quiz everyone. This is a great way to pass the time while everyone is waiting for the feast to be ready. Just tell the winners they can’t take the centerpieces until dinner is over!

A similar game can be played before dessert. Create a family trivia game and quiz family members before dessert. Only those guests who answer correctly  get to have their dessert. Everyone else has to keep trying until they get their trivia question correct.

Questions can range from the silly to the sublime. They might look something like this:
*Who got popcorn stuck in her braces at 12?
*Which man here wore boots with big holes in them until he was 20 and could buy his own?
*Whose grandparents immigrated to the US from Ireland?
*Which boy here got suspended from school for riding his bike into the classroom?