Each year I have grand ideas about how we can learn about Thanksgiving in our homeschooling. And each year, the week leading up to the holiday ends up being crazy and I get very little of what I hoped to do done. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving meant a huge dinner with LOTS of uncles, aunts, cousins, and other relatives and friends. Thanksgiving meant too many people, too much food, too much noise, too much football, and lots of good memories. 20-30 people for dinner was normal. These days, sadly, we haven't been able to travel on Thanksgiving and so our holiday keeps getting smaller and smaller. Last year we had only 7 people for dinner at my house. This year, only five. So, I've really been trying to think of ways to make the holiday special for my boys since they are having such a different experience from my childhood experience.
Last year, we started the tradition of writing what we are thankful for on colored paper leaves (which I cut out the night before). We put them all over the table as a reminder of why we are celebrating. I mentioned that in
this previous post. And we also have a habit of dressing up like the Pilgrims and Indians, if I can manage to make that happen. Last year, I forgot, but luckily my oldest went to work and made the costumes himself on Thanksgiving morning. This year, my mom came to visit the week before Thanksgiving and made great
costumes with my boys one morning while I was teaching at the university.
But I'd really like to find some good books to use for our Thanksgiving celebration and for learning about the holiday and history. Last year, we read this very good book:
The First Thanksgiving. It was included as part of our K12 First Grade Language Arts curriculum. It's a pretty thorough retelling of the history of the Pilgrims and their relationship with Samoset, Squanto and Massasoit. It also ended with a mention of Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of the holiday in 1863. My kids enjoyed it and the oldest remembered some of the details from when we read it last year. But I know there have to be some other great books out there. Does anyone else have any suggestions for good books for Thanksgiving studies?
On the spiritual side, at church on the eve of the holiday, we prayed the Akathist Glory to God for All Things, which is absolutely beautiful. The poetry of this Akathist is wonderful, and you can't pray it without feeling joyously grateful for all of God's world and blessings. The full text is available
here. We also really like to read Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, which really puts the celebration of this holiday in perspective. The full text for it is
here.
Glory and Thanks to God for Everything!!
Of course, Orthodox don't celebrate this St. Valentine on Feb. 14. And, in fact, I don't think we make much of his feast at all. (It's sometime in the summer I think?). However, I wanted to mention that my boys and I have really enjoyed reading the book Saint Valentine by Robert Sabuda. It has lovely mosaic illustrations and tells several stories/legends from the life of St. Valentine. We read it as part of our study of the Roman Empire (and the persecution of Christians before Constantine) earlier this year. But I was glad we had it around when Valentine's Day rolled around this year.
