Thanksgiving An Early Learner/Special Needs Unit Study By Tara Bertic
I wrote this unit study for my youngest son, Jeremiah. Jeremiah is nine-years-old and he has Autism. I want Jerry to have an understanding of the holiday we celebrate as Thanksgiving. I want him to know why we celebrate Thanksgiving, where and how it originated, and to recognize symbols associated with the holiday. More than that, I want Jerry to be thankful. I want him to thank God for his blessings, be they material, physical, or spiritual. There is far too much discontentment in our world today. I don t want Jerry to adopt the gotta have it now, can t live without it, won t be happy until I get it mentality that is so rampant in much of our American Dream culture. So I wrote this unit study to teach Jeremiah thankfulness, contentment with what he has, and about this great holiday we celebrate each November. I incorporated activities that will help him practice his basic readiness skills, life skills, matching, patterning, and other academic and social skills. Though I wrote this unit study for my little boy with special needs, it can also be used with any kindergarten/1 st grade student. Enjoy!
I checked out many, many Thanksgiving books from our local library to read to Jeremiah. I picked fiction and non-fiction books. Here are a few of the titles offered. There were over 300 to choose from! Katie Saves Thanksgiving by Fran Manushkin Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy s Parade by Melissa Sweet Thanksgiving by Rebecca Rissman Thanksgiving Then and Now by Jessica Gunderson Thanksgiving by Trudi Strain Trueit The Pilgrims First Thanksgiving by Jessica Gunderson I Spy Thanksgiving by Jean Marzollo Trucksgiving by Jon Scieszka I m No Turkey by Hans Wilhelm Amelia Bedelia Talks Turkey by Herman Parish It s Thanksgiving! By Jack Prelutsky Give Thanks to the Lord by Karma Wilson Thanksgiving: A Day of Thanks by Amanda Doering I did some Thanksgiving crafts with Jeremiah as well. Anyone can Google Thanksgiving crafts and come up with dozens of sites to choose activities from. The library even has books of holiday crafts to check out. Here are a few of the free sites out there however to save you from the search. If we did a craft from one of these sites, I included the name of the craft and a picture of how ours turned out. Crafts: http://familyfun.go.com/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-craft-decorations/ http://www.makingfriends.com/thanksgiving.htm http://crafts.kaboose.com/holidays/thanksgiving/ http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/thanksgiving.html http://dltk-holidays.com/thanksgiving/crafts.html http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/thanksgiving/crafts/ http://www.crafts-for-all-seasons.com/thanksgiving-crafts.html
From the last site listed, we made: Thankful Turkey Craft On ours however, we put Scriptures relating to being thankful on our turkey s feathers. I printed them for Jeremiah to cut out and glue to the construction paper feathers. Here are the Scriptures we used if you would like to do the same. Colossians 4:2 - Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Psalm 9:1 - I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds. Psalm 69:30 - I will praise God s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. Psalm 100:4 - Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Psalm 118:1 - Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. 1 Corinthians 1:4 - I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 2 Corinthians 9:15 - Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! Ephesians 1:16 - I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Colossians 3:17 - And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. 1 Timothy 4:4 - For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
Paper Plate Cornucopia While we glued our food onto our cornucopia, we talked about where each item comes from/where it grows (i.e. on a tree, in the ground or a garden, from a cow, from a pig, etc ). Bubble Wrap Indian Corn Here is also a picture of a handprint turkey Jeremiah made last year. We traced his foot for the turkey s body as well. I don t remember the site we found this one on, but it is simple enough to make just from the picture. Or you can Google handprint turkey craft and take your pic! They re everywhere! Coloring Pages: http://www.coloringpages.net/thanksgiving.html http://www.apples4theteacher.com/coloring-pages/thanksgiving/ http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-color.html http://www.coloring.ws/thanksgiving.html http://www.free-coloring-pages.com/thanksgiving.html http://familyfun.go.com/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-printables/thanksgiving-coloringpages/ http://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/holidays/thanksgiving-coloring-pages/ http://www.freekidscoloring.com/holiday/thanksgiving/ http://dltk-holidays.com/thanksgiving/mthanksgivingposter.html
I chose coloring pages from these sites to reinforce parts of the Thanksgiving story that I read to Jeremiah. He colored while I read. Optional Activities: In addition to the ideas in this unit study, there are some optional activities to think about, not necessarily related to Thanksgiving, but certainly to the time of year we celebrate it. They are: Visit a corn maze. This is a great problem solving activity and can really aid in helping to teach your little one thinking skills, deductive reasoning, and patience! Visit a pumpkin patch. Though most pumpkins are orange and round and have stems, challenge your little one to find differences and other similarities while hunting for the perfect pumpkin. Watch the Macy s Day parade together! This is just plain fun! Pumpkin carving is not just for Halloween. We don t celebrate Halloween, but we do celebrate what God has done in our lives by cleaning out the ugly and making us new in Him. Watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving! It s a classic! We talk about how sinful and without hope we are before we become Christians. God chooses us from among all of the other people in this world, the same way we choose which pumpkin in the field to take home with us. Then we talk about how God cleans the dirt off of us and begins to wipe away the filth of the world we were in with all of the other people/pumpkins. He then begins to cut away at our hearts to soften them. During this time, we cut the top off of our pumpkin. While the kids scoop out the nasty slimy insides, we talk about how full of sin we are and even name some specific sins we struggle with. We talk about how God is the best housekeeper and how He begins to clean out the rooms of our hearts when He moves in. God removes our seeds of doubt, fear, rejection, hatred, envy, strife, jealousy, etc
As we carve our pumpkin s happy face, we discuss how God changes our outward appearance as well by turning our frowns upside down as we find joy in ALL of our circumstances. Finally, the candle inside reminds us of the light of the Holy Spirit living in us and how we are called to be lights in this world of darkness we live in. This is an excellent activity for kids who are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic and not one they will forget anytime soon. Start a thankful journal. Jerry has one that s simply a small spiral bound notebook I picked up at the dollar store. All of my kids have a thankful journal, as do I. In it, we record everything we have to be thankful for from each day. It s like journaling or keeping a diary, but of your blessings. It keeps discontentment from growing in your heart and really disciplines you to look for and find things to be thankful for in all of your circumstances. The things you journal can be simple, like getting a good parking spot at the grocery store because it was raining out.to big, like not getting hurt in the accident that totaled your car. Jerry cannot read or write yet and so I record his entries for him, but we talk about them everyday. His can range from meeting Grave Digger s Dennis Anderson at Monster Jam to the sticky stuff the EEG machine left on his head coming out easily when he took a bath. Again, there is something to be thankful for in EVERY situation. You just have to train yourself to look for them.
Here is the story of Thanksgiving that I wrote based on actual facts I researched. Remember, I wrote it for a little boy with autism who thinks on a kindergarten/1 st grade level. I have no doubt that there are more facts, details, and historical dates and accounts I could have included, but my main objective was not to be historically thorough. My goal was to give Jerry a basic understanding of Thanksgiving, where and how it originated, and why we still celebrate it today. I read this to Jerry at the beginning of our study. A Thanksgiving Story A long time ago there was a king in a country called England. His name was King James. This king made a law that all of the people in England had to go to the Church of England and live by that church s rules and customs. Some of the people who lived in England did not like this new law and they wanted to go to the churches they chose to worship at. So these people we call pilgrims sailed on a boat called the Mayflower across the Atlantic Ocean to a new world they had heard about. There were 101 men, women, and children. They spent 65 days on the boat and life was not easy there. They had to eat cold food because there was no way to heat it up. The pilgrims intended to land where New York is today. The winds were so high and the journey so rough though that the pilgrims decided to stop in Plymouth. This was in 1620. The first winter in the new world for the pilgrims was very hard. The snow was deep and there was little food for them to find. Many pilgrims became sick and even died. Still, they were happy because they were free to worship as they chose. In the spring of 1621, the pilgrims became friends with the Indians who already lived in this new world. The Indians helped the pilgrims grow corn and taught them how to use fish to make the dirt better for growing food in. In the fall, the pilgrims and the Indians hunted for deer and fished for fish to have a great feast so they could celebrate how God had provided for them since they d moved to the new world. The pilgrims and Indians ate together for three days. They played ball games, sang, and danced. Two years later, there was a terrible drought in the land. That means that it did not rain for two whole months! Because it didn t rain, the food the pilgrims planted was not getting the water it needed to grow. Finally, two months later, God sent rain and, once again, the pilgrims celebrated with a big feast, thanking God for the rain He provided to make their food grow. Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving for some of the very same reasons. We take this day each year to remember all that God has blessed us with and to give thanks to Him for it. But thanksgiving to God doesn t have to be just one time a year. We can and should thank God every day for all we have and all the things He does for us.
Story Re-Enactment Jeremiah is not simply an auditory learner. He learns best when he re-enacts what we have read. Therefore, we used a box big enough for him to sit in and re-enacted the windy and rough journey from England to Plymouth across the Atlantic. Jerry has a sailor s hat he wore and I pulled him in the box and rocked him to the point of nearly tipping him out to show him what the pilgrims might have experienced. He loved this. I even had my older kids use paper fans to fan him during his ride to simulate the wind. Jerry even got his flag he got at a dinner show in Orlando to use as the ship s flag. It was great! We talked a lot about sharing too and how the Indians shared their knowledge and seeds and skills with their new neighbors. The pilgrims and Indians also shared a meal together in their thanksgiving to God. Over the next few days, whenever the opportunity arose for Jerry to practice sharing, I would say, Share like the Indians did. Map It I printed the United States map then from http://www.yourchildlearns.com/onlineatlas/united-states-map-print.htm and the map of the United Kingdom from http://www.yourchildlearns.com/online-atlas/united-kingdom-map-print.htm.
I wasn t out to teach Jerry where all of the countries were on the world map, but I did show him on a globe where the continents of Europe and North America are. Then I cut and pasted the two continents by themselves onto a sheet of butcher paper. I had Jerry copy 1620 in his own writing at the top of the page. Then he cut out a picture of the Mayflower and glued it near England and drew a line to Plymouth where the pilgrims landed. He glued another Mayflower there. He drew a red star near New York where the pilgrims were originally headed. I had him color the area between Europe and North America on our map blue to represent the Atlantic Ocean. He labeled this ocean as well. I also had him color the area where the pilgrims landed. I also wrote The Pilgrims Journey on the bottom. Again, for you history buffs, please don t criticize the particulars of where they sailed to and from. This is a basic kindergarten/1 st grade level understanding of the pilgrims journey. Here is the clip art we used: Memory Jeremiah has a very short memory to go with his short attention span. Repetition is key for him with everything he learns. Even then, if we don t practice the skills he s learned daily, over time, he will forget them even basic skills like teeth-brushing or shoe-tying. Thankfully, we do those things daily! Anyway, with Thanksgiving only once a year, I wanted to come up with a game that we could play anytime of the year that would challenge him to remember why we celebrate the holiday. So we played memory. I printed the cards and laid them face down and scrambled on the table. Then he and I took turns flipping two cards over and looking for their matches.
I didn t use all of the cards I made at first. I just started with five sets of cards and then we worked our way up from there, adding in a new set or two at a time. As Jeremiah or I found cards that matched, I would ask him questions about the cards. What is that a picture of? What is the person in this picture called (Indian/pilgrim)? What are they doing? Why are they doing that? What do you remember about that/them from our story of Thanksgiving? It reinforced what we learned in our study and by the time we were finished with our game, we had basically retold the story of Thanksgiving.
THANKSGIVING I gave Jeremiah the word THANKSGIVING to use as a visual and then gave him the letters cut out and scrambled up. He put them in order by following the letters in the word example I had given him. He glued them to a large piece of paper in order and then we talked about what things he was thankful for that started with each letter in the word THANKSGIVING. He drew a picture of one of the thankful things under each letter. We also counted how many letters are in the word THANKSGIVING. I wrote what each picture was under its drawing. That helps Jerry learn to match words to their pictures (reading readiness).
Candy Corn Counting I used candy corn to work on numbers with Jerry. We counted the candy corn first. I only went to ten with Jerry because that s all he can rote count to. You can use more or less depending on your child s capabilities. Next, I put some candy corn in one bowl and some in another bowl. I asked him to count how many were in each bowl and then tell me which bowl had more which bowl had less. Then I asked him to show me how many more or less the particular set had by matching the candy corn pieces together. Then he could tell me how many pieces didn t have matches and were left over. I bought 3 different kinds of candy corn for math. I bought the regular kind, the kind with the chocolate ends, and the kind shaped like pumpkins. I dumped a handful of each kind onto the table and asked Jerry to group them into sets by which kind they were. Then I drew some stick family members on a large sheet of paper. I drew them holding large bowls (extent of my artistic ability). I wrote different numbers above each person s picture. I asked Jeremiah to give each family member the amount of candy corn shown above them. He put the candy in their bowls! Then I helped him count how many candy corns there were altogether by adding up what was in everyone s bowls.
Another math skill is patterning. I put candy corn in a row, but in variations. For example, candy corn, candy corn pumpkin, candy corn, candy corn pumpkin, etc I asked Jerry to tell me what pattern he saw. It helped to have him name the candy out loud while he pointed at each of them and went down the row. I used my hands then to show him the way the candies were grouped (candy corn and candy corn pumpkin). Then I removed a few random pieces of candy from the row. I put an index card in their places. I handed Jerry the candies I had removed and then began asking him, Which candy will go here Jerry? I would point to one of the index cards and he would have to figure out which candy piece would go there to complete the pattern. This was a real thinker for the little stinker! You could also use some of the memory card pictures for patterning.
Thankful for you because Place Cards I wanted Jerry to understand that you can be as thankful for people as you can for stuff a hard concept for any kid to grasp. We used cardstock to cut out rectangles and fold them over into place cards. Jerry then used his thumbprint and brown paint to make a turkey body. He used markers to draw on feathers and glued google eyes on each turkey too. We drew on legs and feet then and wrote the names of each person we d be eating Thanksgiving dinner with on the fronts of each card. Inside, I talked with Jerry about what we were thankful for about each person and I wrote that for him there. For example, Uncle Tony is a veterinarian. So we wrote inside, I am thankful for you because you make animals feel better. These were personal to each person at our table and meant so much to them. Thankful Tree Centerpiece For this project, we included everyone in the family. Everyone traced both of their hands on fall-colored construction paper and cut them out. We each then wrote something we are thankful for on each of our hand cutouts. We used a hole punch to put holes in the tops of our hands and then looped a strand of string through the holes and knotted the string. Next, I found a dead branch off of a tree out in the yard and put it in a plant pot full of dirt to make it stand up (could use rocks too).
We hung our handprint leaves on the tree limbs then to make a nice table centerpiece. I don t have a picture of this because my cats found the dirt in it quite irresistible and kept knocking it over! You could also hang the handprints on an artificial tree or plant in your home, which is what we resorted to. Or you could make a tree from construction paper for your wall and tape your handprint leaves to it. It s your personal preference. Table Setting I always try to fit life skills into everything I teach Jeremiah about and this unit study is no exception. For Thanksgiving, I thought what better time than to teach Jeremiah the proper way to set a table. For those of you who don t know, here is the correct way. (picture from thatitgirl.com) Of course, there could be salad plates and forks, soup bowls and spoons, and even extra glasses for different course drinks, but that s not the type of Thanksgiving dinner we have! Turkey, sides, drinks, and dessert that about sums it up! You can Google table settings for pictures of fancier meals if you d like. Plant A Bean While talking about how the Indians helped teach the pilgrims how to plant and grow their vegetables, we planted a bean to watch and grow. I wet a folded paper towel and put it in a clear plastic cup so Jerry could watch his bean sprout. The paper towel was wedged up against the side of the cup. In between the paper towel and cup, Jerry put a lima bean. We re-wet the paper towel everyday and watched as our lima bean began to sprout. After a few days, we transferred the bean plant to a patch of dirt in the yard.
You could also put the wet paper towel and lima bean in a clear Ziploc bag. Pilgrim Games We played Corn Toss, one of many games the pilgrims likely played with their new Indian friends during their days of feasting and partying. Basically, we took one of our craft Indian corns we made from bubble wrap and tossed it back and forth, taking one step back from each other after each toss, making it more difficult to catch. The first person to drop or not catch the Indian corn lost. Visit http://www.examiner.com/holidays-incincinnati/five-of-the-best-thanksgiving-games-pilgrims-may-have-played for other games. Manners Another great life skill is learning good manners. There are few things I loathe more than kids who slump on elbows at the table while they smack and chomp their food with mouths wide open, talking and laughing even. UGH! We spent a few nights of dinner before Thanksgiving practicing good manners, including saying please and thank you before and after asking for dinner items to be passed around. We also taught handwashing before eating and putting our napkins in our laps and asking to be excused before just leaving the table. I found a great book at the library called The Well-Mannered Monster by Marcy Brown and Dennis Haley. We read this and then made a placemat for Jeremiah to use at dinner that had pictures on it reminding him of his good manners.
We put washing hands on our placemat. There was a mouth. We drew a red X over the open space.
Sitting up at the table A big red X over the elbow Jerry also wrote the words please and thank you on his placemat. We also glued a folded napkin on our placemat. These were just some basic manners. Everyone has different requirements at the dinner table, but these are the major ones for us. You can add or take away whatever pictures you d like to reinforce your household rules. You can glue your placemat to poster board, cut it out, and have it laminated if you wish as well.
So there you have it. These are the activities and crafts and stories I used to teach Jeremiah about Thanksgiving and use the holiday to teach him other basic learning and life skills as well. I pray you enjoyed following along with us and that your little one, whether special needs or not enjoyed it too and even learned something along the way!