The First Thanksgiving

Subject: Social Studies

Grade Level: 2

Ohio Academic Content Standards

Social Studies Indicators
-People in Societies
3. Explain how contributions of different cultures within the United States have
influenced our common national heritage.
-Social Studies Skills and Methods
5. Communicate information in writing.
Social Studies Benchmarks
-History
C. Compare daily life in the past and present demonstrating an understanding that while
basic human needs remain the same, they are met in different ways in different times and
places.
D. Recognize that the actions of individuals make a difference, and relate the stories of
people from diverse backgrounds who have contributed to the heritage of the United
States.
-People in Societies
A. Identify practices and products of diverse cultures.
B. Identify ways that different cultures within the United States and the world have shaped
our national heritage.
Language Arts Indicators
-Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies
3. Compare and contrast information in texts with prior knowledge and experience.
4. Summarize text by recalling main ideas and some supporting details.
5. Create and use graphic organizers, such as Venn diagrams and webs, to demonstrate
comprehension.
6. Answer literal, inferential and evaluative questions to demonstrate comprehension of
grade-appropriate print texts and electronic and visual media.
Language Arts Benchmarks
-Reading Process: Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies
C. Draw conclusions from information in text.
D. Apply reading skills and strategies to summarize and compare and contrast
information in text, between text and across subject areas.
-Reading Applications: Informational, Technical and Persuasive Text
A. Use text features and structures to organize content, draw conclusions and build text
knowledge.
D. Use visual aids as sources to gain additional information from text.
-Writing Processes
C. Use organizers to clarify ideas for writing assignments.

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Objectives: Students will be able to:
 Describe the setting, characters, and activities involved in The First Thanksgiving.
 Read, interpret, and create a Venn diagram based on the foods eaten on the First
Thanksgiving compared to modern Thanksgiving celebrations.
 Apply their knowledge by writing an imaginary invitation to The First
Thanksgiving Feast.

Materials:
 Thanksgiving books (Squanto and the First Thanksgiving, by Joyce Kessel and Lisa
Donze; Giving Thanks: The 1621 Harvest Feast, by Kate Waters; The Pilgrims’ First
Thanksgiving by Ann McGovern; A Pioneer Thanksgiving, by Barbara Greenwood and
Heather Collins, A Thanksgiving Wish, by Michael J. Rosen and John Thompson, One
Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims, by B.G. Hennesey)
 The First Thanksgiving by: Nora Smith (adapted)
 computer with internet access
 reading comprehension worksheets
 Thanksgiving Day Menus
 white board
 dry erase markers
 magnetic food cutouts
 invitation template
 blank invitation handouts

Activities:
1. A few days prior to the lesson, the teacher will read the students books about the First
Thanksgiving, and place the collection of these books in the classroom library for the
students to read during their free time. Introduce vocabulary words and add these to
the “Thanksgiving Words” poster. Encourage the students to read the “Did You
Know” facts on the bulletin board.
2. Hand out the adapted copies of The First Thanksgiving to students. Have the students
follow along as the teacher reads the story aloud. This exposure to the story will give
students the background knowledge necessary to understand the details about the first
Thanksgiving.
3. Using the Thanksgiving slideshow on the Scholastic website, students will be shown
pictures of the First Thanksgiving, including pictures of the pilgrims and Indians.
Discuss the students’ observations from the pictures as a class.
4. As a class, the students will read the reading comprehension worksheet together and
complete the questions individually. When students are finished, the class will review
the answers together.
5. The students will gather in a group on the floor, and each student will receive a copy
of the Thanksgiving Day Menus. The teacher will draw a Venn diagram on the board
to compare and contrast the foods served at the First Thanksgiving with the foods
traditionally served at modern Thanksgivings. Students will analyze their menus to
determine where to place each magnetic food cutout within the Venn diagram. For
example, a student might realize that corn was served at the First Thanksgiving and is
still served in modern Thanksgivings, so he/she would go up to the board and place

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 the corn picture under the middle area labeled “Both.” This will continue until all the
magnetic food cutouts have been properly identified and placed in the Venn diagram.
6. The class will then review the necessary parts of an invitation. Students will receive a
blank invitation card and will get information for their invitation from the resources
in the room, including the bulletin board, story, books, comprehension worksheet, and
Venn diagram. They are to imagine they are a pilgrim inviting the Indians to their
Thanksgiving Day Feast. Creativity and drawings should be encouraged.

Conclusion:
Once students have finished writing their invitations, have them cut out and paste their
invitations onto autumn-colored construction paper. Allow students to share these invitations
they have created with the rest of the class. Hang the invitations in the hallway, around the room,
or on another bulletin board.

Extension:
Hold a First Thanksgiving Day Feast. Allow students to dress up in costumes (could be as simple
as paper pilgrim hats and Indian headbands). The teacher or parent volunteer can bring in
Thanksgiving foods for the students. While the students eat, the class can play educational
games, such as “The First Thanksgiving Hangman” or “Thanksgiving Jeopardy.”

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 The First Thanksgiving by Nora Smith
adapted by Melanie Platfoot

Nearly four hundred years ago, a great many of the people in

England were very unhappy because their king would not let
them pray to God as they liked.

"Let us go away from this country," said the unhappy

Englishmen to each other and they began to call themselves "Pilgrims."

They hired two vessels, called the Mayflower and the Speedwell, to take them
across the sea; but the Speedwell was not a strong ship, and the captain had
to take her home again before she had gone very far.

The Mayflower went back, too. Part of the Speedwell's passengers were given
to her, and then she started alone across the great ocean.

There were one hundred people on board - mothers and fathers, brothers and
sisters and little children. They were very crowded; it was cold and
uncomfortable; the sea was rough, and pitched the Mayflower about, and they
were two months sailing over the water.

The children cried many times on the journey, and wished they had never
come on the tiresome ship that rocked them so hard, and would not let them
keep still a minute.

But they had one pretty plaything to amuse them, for in the middle of the great
ocean a Pilgrim baby was born, and they called him "Oceanus," for his
birthplace. When the children grew so tired that they were cross and fretful,
Oceanus' mother let them come and play with him, and that always brought
smiles and happy faces back again.

At last the Mayflower came in sight of land; but if the children had been
thinking of grass and flowers and birds, they must have been very much
disappointed, for the month was cold November, and there was nothing to be
seen but rocks and sand and hard bare ground.

Some of the Pilgrim fathers, with brave Captain Myles Standish at their head,
went on shore to see if they could find any houses or white people. But they
only saw some wild Indians, who ran away from them, and found some Indian
huts and some corn buried in holes in the ground. They went to and fro from

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the ship three times, till by and by they found a pretty place to live, where
there were "fields and little running brooks."

Then at last all the tired Pilgrims landed from the ship on a spot now called
Plymouth Rock, and the first house was begun on Christmas Day. But when I
tell you how sick they were and how much they suffered that first winter, you
will be very sad and sorry for them. The weather was cold, the snow fell fast
and thick, the wind was icy, and the Pilgrim fathers had no one to help them
cut down the trees and build their church and their houses.

The Pilgrim mothers helped all they could; but they were tired with the long
journey, and cold, and hungry too, for no one had the right kind of food to eat,
nor even enough of it.

So first one was taken sick, and then another, till half of them were in bed at
the same time, Brave Myles Standish and the other soldiers nursed them as
well as they knew how; but before spring came half of the people died.

But by and by the sun shone more brightly, the snow melted, the leaves
began to grow, and sweet spring had come again.

Some friendly Indians had visited the Pilgrims during the winter, and Captain
Myles Standish, with several of his men, had returned the visit.

One of the kind Indians was called Squanto, and he came to stay with the
Pilgrims, and showed them how to plant their corn, and their peas and wheat
and barley.

When the summer came and the days were long and bright, the Pilgrim
children were very happy, and they thought Plymouth a lovely place indeed.
All kinds of beautiful wild flowers grew at their doors, there were hundreds of
birds and butterflies, and the great pine woods were always cool and shady
when the sun was too bright.

When it was autumn the fathers gathered the barley and wheat and corn that
they had planted, and found that it had grown so well that they would have
quite enough for the long winter that was coming.

"Let us thank God for it all," they said. "It is He who has made the sun shine
and the rain fall and the corn grow." So they thanked God in their homes and
in their little church; the fathers and the mothers and the children thanked
Him.

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"Then," said the Pilgrim mothers, "let us have a great Thanksgiving party, and
invite the friendly Indians, and all rejoice together."

So they had the first Thanksgiving party, and a grand one it was! Four men
went out shooting one whole day, and brought back so many wild ducks and
geese and great wild turkeys that there was enough for almost a week. There
was deer meat also, of course, for there were plenty of fine deer in the forest.
Then the Pilgrim mothers made the corn and wheat into bread and cakes, and
they had fish and clams from the sea besides.

The friendly Indians all came with their chief Massasoit. Every one came that
was invited for there were ninety of them altogether.

They brought five deer with them, which they gave to the Pilgrims; and they
must have liked the party very much, for they stayed three days.

Kind as the Indians were, you would have been very much frightened if you
had seen them; and the baby Oceanus, who was a year old then, began to cry
at first whenever they came near him.

They were dressed in deerskins, and some of them had the furry coat of a
wild cat hanging on their arms. Their long black hair fell loose on their
shoulders, and was trimmed with feathers or fox-tails. They had their faces
painted in all kinds of strange ways, some with black stripes as broad as your
finger all up and down them. But whatever they wore, it was their very best,
and they had put it on for the Thanksgiving party.

Each meal, before they ate anything, the Pilgrims and the Indians thanked
God together. The Indians sang and danced in the evenings, and every day
they ran races and played all kinds of games with the children.

Then sometimes the Pilgrims with their guns, and the Indians with their bows
and arrows, would see who could shoot farthest and best. So they were glad
and merry and thankful for three whole days.

All this happened nearly four hundred years ago, and ever since that time
Thanksgiving has been kept in our country. Every year our fathers and
grandfathers and great-grandfathers have "rejoiced together" like the Pilgrims,
and have had something to be thankful for each time. Hopefully, you can think
of many things you are thankful for, too.

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/thanksgiving/short-stories/the-first-
thanksgiving.html

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Name ________________________________ Date _______________

THANKSGIVING, 1621
The Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe had a fun time
at their Thanksgiving celebration in 1621. The Pilgrims
were so thankful for their harvest that year and to the
Wampanoag for teaching them to grow crops.

Their Thanksgiving celebration was a big three-day party. It was held

outside because the Pilgrims did not have a building large enough for 140
people to eat in. They ate many different kinds of foods at their
Thanksgiving party. Some of the things they ate were deer, turkey, fish,
squash, corn, and other vegetables. The Pilgrims and Wampanoag played
games, read stories, went to church, and ate for three days.

The modern Thanksgiving celebration in the United States is in

memory of that day. It is usually only for one day, instead of three! On
Thanksgiving, we usually spend time with our families and friends. It
is a time when people are thankful for the many blessings we have.

ANSWER THE QUESTIONS ABOUT THANKSGIVING, 1621

1. How many people were at the 1621 Thanksgiving? ____________
2. How long did the 1621 Thanksgiving last? ___________________
3. What foods did they eat at the Thanksgiving in 1621?
_____________________________________________________
4. What did the Wampanoags teach the Pilgrims to do?
_____________________________________________________
5. What kinds of things did the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags do at
their Thanksgiving?
_____________________________________________________
THINK ABOUT YOURSELF

6. How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving? ____________________

____________________________________________________________
7. What does Thanksgiving mean to you? __________________________
____________________________________________________________
Reading Comprehension/History © 2006abcteach.com
http://www.abcteach.com/free/r/rc_thanksgiving1621_primaryelem.pdf