Step Into a Pilgrim’s Shoes

Half the class will don funny hats and call themselves pilgrims. Another group will wear feathers in their hair and brown paper-bag vests to be “Indians.” One unlucky soul will portray the ill-fated turkey in this yearly reenactment of the First Thanksgiving in primary classrooms across the US. This type of role-playing simplifies the relationship between these English colonists and the Wampanoag People. This type of play teaches young students good lessons about perseverance and cooperation, but often glosses over the challenges and sacrifices that are part of the history of the First Thanksgiving.

The following resources will help your students empathize with the real characters that were part of this feast. Hopefully they will feel like they are part of the history and understand that the Thanksgiving holiday is about more than just time off school to eat, shop, and watch football.

Young students can learn a lot from Thanksgiving stories, crafts, and class discussions. Packing the Pilgrim’s Trunk: Personalizing History in the Elementary Classroom expands on this type of activities to make the history of Thanksgiving more accessible and relevant to students. This resource from ReadWriteThink is split into 9 lessons, some of which can be used independently. I really like how each student packs a “trunk” of treasures. They learn to empathize with pilgrim children as they narrow down their choices to be able to fit in their allowed space. They also explore the differences between themselves and pilgrim children and have a chance to plan their own harvest meal with their class. This chance to walk a few steps in a pilgrim’s shoes is a memorable way for young students to begin to make connections between their own lives and the lives of people they learn about in history.

Thanksgiving – A Celebration of Gratitude is a smaller collection of lessons for young elementary school students. These lessons are fairly quick and easy to implement since most classrooms have the required materials on hand. The activities focus on the hardships faced by the English colonists and the help they received from the native Wampanoag People. Even in a time of extreme hardship, these people were celebrating the many reasons to be thankful. Hopefully students will empathize with this gratitude and realize many reasons to be thankful as well.

It’s important for students to be able to process the many things they read, see, and hear every day. Learning to differentiate facts from fiction as they read primary documentation of historical events is an important step. Students can read first-person accounts of the events of the First Thanksgiving to determine what really happened. Myth and Truth: The First Thanksgiving, also from ReadWriteThink, is a nice activity for 6-8th graders. Students are challenged to research myths of the First Thanksgiving on their own and creatively present their findings to their peers. This will help students see how some stories tend to be exaggerated over time and how not everything that is written down is true.

If you are teaching high school, look at William Bradford: The Pen and The Person, a 7-lesson online unit from the Pilgrim Society and Pilgrim Hall Museum. This unit focuses on reading primary resources as it challenges students to explore William Bradford’s journal. His journal has often been called Of Plimoth Plantation (or Of Plymouth Plantation, depending on if you prefer to use modern spelling or not). Reading Bradford’s first hand account of the pilgrim’s struggles (mainly in 17th century spelling) is challenging and can give students’ insight into what really happened in the fall of 1621. These are the stories that have evolved into the history of the First Thanksgiving. Students also compile a class journal in 17th century penmanship. They use this journal to determine how language interprets events and to see the importance of reading primary resources critically.

There is something magical and inspiring about visiting a place where pivotal moments occurred. Unless you live near Plimoth Plantation, taking your class on a field trip there is probably not possible. The internet is an amazing tool, and might be the next best thing to getting on a bus to the actual site. Life on Plymouth Plantation will help get you started exploring these historical sites virtually. There are a few broken links in the resource, so when you get to the virtual tour of the plantation, try this link instead: http://www.plimoth.org/learn/MRL/watch/virtual-tours. You might also want to check out Plimoth Plantation’s Thanksgiving Virtual Field Trip, which they are expanding this year. It’s a fun, simple way to bring Thanksgiving into your classroom.

I hope these resources can help you bring the First Thanksgiving to life. Follow the Gateway on Facebook and Twitter for more suggestions all week.