Thanksgiving Week in First Grade

I will give thanks to the Lord because of His righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.  Psalm 7:17

                        Monday, 11/19

We started our week by making 'poppets'.  These are little dolls made from socks, similar to what colonial kids might have made and played with.

Here are some pictures of our art project for Monday.  We used paper sacks to make our own animal skin wall hangings.

Monday afternoon we made turkey cookies and passed them out to the whole school.  This has become a first grade tradition here at CCS, and the older kids were really happy to see us walk in with a platter of turkey cookies for them.  We had each turkey sitting on a little note that said, "Happy Thanksgiving from all the little turkeys in first grade."

Tuesday, 11/20

Tuesday found us busy with some fun art projects.  We started the day by making vests, headbands, and pilgrim hats. 

We did another art project, this time using a potato.  We made a head, tail feathers, and wings and let a grown-up hot glue them onto a potato for us.  The results were these cute little potato turkeys!

We prepared (and sampled) our own recipe for 'no-bake' pumpkin pies.  Most of us thought they were yummy, and all of us enjoyed preparing them!

Wednesday, 11/21

We ended our special week day with another fun cooking activity.  We made cornbread and butter.  We learned how the early colonists were not familiar with maize (corn) and how the Native North Americans used it in a variety of ways.  Did you know that early colonists found uses for every part of the corn plant?  They dried the corn and ground it into cornmeal for cornbread and mush.  They used the husks to make dolls for their children, to feed to the pigs, to burn in the fireplace, or to stuff in mattresses.  They had to plant corn seeds each year for the next year's harvest.

                    We also learned how colonial children were often in charge of milking the family cow and churning the butter.  Since we don't have a churn, we just used heavy whipping cream and a jar.  By shaking the jar the liquid separates from the solid and we are left with sweet butter.  It tastes a little different than the butter in the store because we added very little salt.  We sampled the cornbread and butter.  We decided that as we count our blessings this year, we are thankful that getting food is so much easier for us.  Our arms were aching by the time our butter was complete.  

Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.
Psalm 100:4