This morning, my mind drifts back quite a few years to headbands and paper sack vests. Kindergarteners and Thanksgiving! It was a fun time and I have no idea whether children still do this or whether it is now frowned on, but we celebrated Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, and Indians. In the process, we learned some American history.
For weeks, parents of kindergarteners saved brown paper grocery sacks. Cutting them down the front, cutting out armholes and a neck hole turned them into neat little leather vests. Then, we painted symbols on them…clouds and raindrops, arrows, mountains. A strip of the brown paper became a headband, likewise brightly decorated.
We also made white pilgrims’ bonnets or black hats with brims. We talked about the food that must have been eaten, food that was homegrown. We talked about the first white settlers and the native people sitting down to eat together and friendship.
We also talked about hardships, the winters that the Pilgrims endured, the strangeness of a new country. And, we learned how the Indian people knew the ways of the forest and animals and taught the newcomers about crops.
We made booklets, writing and illustrating things we were thankful for. It was fun to teach and, I think, it was fun for the children too. Writing, art, history, geography, weather–all came together in the Thanksgiving unit. It seems like yesterday with the kindergarteners, but it was a few years back, those paper sacks and their transformation.
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