Greetings Fifth Grade Families!

 

In Social Studies, we are currently getting a survey of the land and people that lived in regions of the United States before Columbus. For this week though, the topic of the learning is focused on the History of the First Thanksgiving and how it became the American Holiday it is today since we're getting a whole week off of school because of it.

 

The emphasis on this lesson is to represent multiple perspectives through various texts. Here are a list of the books I'm using to teach the topic.

"If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving" by Chris Newell, Scholastic 2021

"1621 A New Look at Thanksgiving" by O'Neill Grace, Bruchac with Plimoth Plantation, National Geographic 2001

"Squanto and the First Thanksgiving" by Joyce K Kessel, Learner Publishing Group 2004

"Keepunumuk, Weeachumun's Thanksgiving Story" Greendeer, Perry, and Bunten, Charlesbridge 2022

"We Are Grateful Otsaliheliga" by Traci Sorell, Charlesbridge 2018

 

I'll be sending home recipes based on historic and cultural dishes related to the region and time of the First Thanksgiving. Feel free to take photos to share if you try them at home. Thanks for creating a hands on experience for them to try at home. 

 

We're continuing to learn the geography of the United States, but instead of by states, we'll be learning from the physical land as used to describe different cultural groups of indigenous peoples of those physical regions. We'll be doing this through large map templates that they will illustrate in the classroom.