Thanksgiving Classroom Resources
Brought to you by KET
It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving will be here soon! I'm sure you have teachers who are, or will be, planning lessons around this holiday in the near future. Following, find just a few resources and videos to help that planning process. Remember, there are many more resources to be found within Discovery Education and PBS LearningMedia.
If you need an account in Discovery Education, please contact your Education Consultant. It's free for all Kentucky K-12 public educators and has over 137,000 classroom-ready resources! PBS LearningMedia is a NEW free repository housing a growing 30,000+ quality digital media assets for education.
As always, please preview all materials to assure they are appropriate for your classroom and community.
Start Each Day with a Song: Tom Turkey
Start Each Day with a Song: Tom Turkey. This song, which is particularly relevant for Thanksgiving, asks children to act like turkeys.
Grades PreK-2.
Discovery Education.
Reading Rainbow: Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning
Reading Rainbow: Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning. Discover the places and faces waiting inside books. Host LeVar Burton shares stories of our natural resources, including Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning by Chief Jake Swamp. The program visits a cranberry farm to see how cranberries are harvested and meets a Native American family who make pottery from local clay. A group of New York City school children explain why protecting the Earth and its gifts is so important.
Grades K-5.
Discovery Education.
Animated Hero Classics: William Bradford: The First Thanksgiving
Animated Hero Classics: William Bradford: The First Thanksgiving. In this program, learn about pilgrim William Bradford. His desire for religious freedom forces him to flee with the Pilgrims. His belief and conviction bring peace with the Indians and the first Thanksgiving.
Grades K-5.
Discovery Education.
Holiday Facts and Fun: Thanksgiving
Holiday Facts and Fun: Thanksgiving. Children learn interesting facts about how harvest festivals are celebrated in various places around the world. The Pilgrim's first year in the New World is described. A historically accurate reenactment of the harvest festival celebrated by the Pilgrims in 1621 is shown.
Grades K-5.
Discovery Education.
Daily Deskersize: Thanksgiving Day
Daily Deskersize: Thanksgiving Day. Directs contained classroom exercises designed to increase mental and physical activity. Introducing the theme Thanksgiving Day, enthusiastic host Slim Goodbody works out by reaching for cobs of corn, sawing wood, and shooting a bow and arrow with Pilgrims and Native Americans.
Grades K-5.
Discovery Education.
Mya and Miguel: The Best Thanksgiving Ever
Mya and Miguel: The Best Thanksgiving Ever. Papi's mother, Tata Santos, is coming from Puerto Rico for Thanksgiving, and Maya and Miguel want to make sure that she gets to have the best Thanksgiving ever. But one by one, things don't go quite as planned - the parade, the family football game, even the enormous turkey Mama intended to serve - and Maya and Miguel have to salvage what could turn out to be a disastrous holiday.
Grades K-5.
Discovery Education.
Living History: Living at the Plymouth Colony
Living History: Living at the Plymouth Colony. This program explores many aspects of life at the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. By viewing this program, students will find out who the Pilgrims were and what brought them to America. Students will come away knowing what the colony's houses and other buildings were like inside and out. They will learn all the things the colonists needed to do to get enough to eat. They will also get a glimpse of some of the many activities that filled the colonist's days at New Plymouth nearly 400 years ago.
Grades 6-8.
Discovery Education.
Native Americans: Contact and Conflict
Native Americans: Contact and Conflict. Chronicles the brutal and violent history of Native American and European conflict in the United States. Beginning with Columbus's explorations and the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, the program examines how Europeans used force, coersion, and fear to take land and natural resources from tribes in the Northeast, Southwest, and Great Plains. Modern scholars emphasize the impact of forced migration on many Native American cultures, including the Navajo, Sioux, and Cherokee.
Grades 6-8.
Discovery Education.
Native American Culture
Native American Culture. A Part of the Social Studies Arts Toolkit by KET. This collection of video segments provides examples of music, dance, drama, and visual art from a variety of Native American cultures, ranging from traditional stories and dances to contemporary artistic works.
Grades 5-12.
PBS LearningMedia.
Circle of Stories: Many Voices: Storytelling Gallery
Circle of Stories: Many Voices: Storytelling Gallery. Explore a photographic collage of images and inspirational quotes, poems and stories from a variety of Native American storytellers. Learn about the history of Native American storytelling. Site also includes lesson plans and other media.
Grades 6-12.
PBS.