(Academic) Thanksgiving Plans!

I can't believe it's Thanksgiving already!!  I am excited to have found something unique for our Thanksgiving week this year!  It's nice to do something we haven't done three times already.  I thought I'd share it early in case someone else thought it looked neat too!

This is an online, interactive "research" project for kids. 
It was created this year after the reenactment of the 1621 harvest feast done by the Plimoth Plantation museum, using pictures from the historically accurate reenactment.  It teaches the student what a historian is, then puts them in that position to find out what really happened in 1621 (and how that might be a bit different than all of our cute little Thanksgiving books tell us).  After they do their "research" there is an opportunity to do an online project too!  And it includes a teacher's guide if that's helpful. 
There's more at the home site too!

Here are some of the books we'll read along with our study (Some of these are repeats, and some are new to us.):

 

Jacob is loving Magic Tree House books right now, so he'll be excited about these!

This last one is one of the Trailblazer series by Dave and Neta Jackson.  We've been learning a lot about different missionaries this year, so this is a great opportunity to learn about William Bradford and his influence on the colonists.

 

We'll also do a few worksheets from enchantedlearning.com (brush up on our turkey knowledge and Massachusetts map skills), some creative writing and color some pictures according to what we've learned.  I'm trying to find a cool science experiment to do, but not having much luck.  I think I'll just do a fun lesson on spices, it just won't include an experiment.

I'm still working on the rest of it, though that will cover all of our academic stuff.  I'll do a separate post on our favorite just-for-fun things to do.