Should we teach kindergarteners about The First Thanksgiving?

Painting by Karen Rinaldo, 1994

We all think we know the story:  In 1621, the Pilgrims who survived the first horrible year in America held a feast where they gave thanks for the bountiful harvest and the help they received from the local Indian tribe.

This is the story that generations of Americans have learned.  As a child, I did not even know the name of the tribe that joined the Puritans at the feast; it wasn't until the 1990s that I learned it was the Wampanoag.  And, until I did a bit of additional research for this post, I did not know that the Wampanoag were not actually invited to the feast. They showed up, prepared for conflict, when they heard the "exercising of arms" that was all the shooting of fowl for the feast.  Nor did I understand that it became a diplomatic meeting, of sorts, between the Puritans and the Wampanoags.  Also, it's not likely that any Native women were in attendance, and the Puritan women and children would have been kept busy cooking, serving, and cleaning up. As for it having been a feast of 'thanks giving," the Puritans fasted--not feasted--on such days.  Read more about it here.

So, given the latest scholarship, should we teach kindergarteners about "the first Thanksgiving?"    And, if we do decide to teach it, what is the best way?

I am in favor of teaching American history to young children.  I believe it is our responsibility as public school teachers to help unify a diverse nation.  It is also our responsibility to teach the truth, however.  So, what truths can 5 and 6 year olds learn about the event that has become known as "the first Thanksgiving?"

Here are the key facts I've shared with my students this year.  I created flipcharts on the interactive whiteboard for some of the information and I'm including some of these images here, as well.

• The Wampanoags lived by the Atlantic Ocean.  They built wetus, grew corn, hunted and fished.  They moved to a warmer place in the winter.  You can read more about how I taught about Native Americans in my previous post.
• The Pilgrims left England because the king would not let them go to their own church.

• They crossed the Atlantic ocean in the Mayflower.

• Half of them died that first winter due to the cold and sickness.
• The Wampanoags were troubled to see the Pilgrims settling on their land.

• But the Wampanoags were kind and saw the Pilgrims were suffering.  They helped the Pilgrims grow crops.

• In the fall, the Pilgrims had lots of food growing in their fields and decided to have a harvest festival.  They also wanted meat at their feast, so they hunted.
• The Wampanoags heard all the "noise" of the feast, and the men decided to check it out. (Note: Here is where I decided to avoid the historical facts surrounding potential warfare.  Better to learn about that a few years further in their education.)  When they arrived and saw there wasn't enough food for everyone, they went out and hunted for some more meat to bring to the feast.
• The Pilgrim women  and children did all the cooking, serving, and cleaning up.
• The feast lasted 3 days.  Between meals, the Pilgrim men and Wampanoags tried to talk about sharing the land.  This was not an easy problem to solve.
• The men also had races with each other.

I shared these books with my class.  Again, there is a scarcity of well-written, historically accurate books for this age level.  Given how very enthusiastic my students have always been about learning history, I wonder why more has not been written?

We made Pilgrim hats, bonnets, and collars.  There are many ideas of how to do this on Pinterest.  Here are pictures of my very simple projects.

Everyone makes a collar from white 12" by 18" construction paper.
I draw the lines and they cut it out.

I draw the biggest possible circle on 12" by 18" brown paper.  I draw and cut out the center inverted "U" shape.
The boys cut the big circle and glue a construction paper rectangle 'hatband' at the bottom of the pre-cut center.

The girls cut on the lines then I fold it up and staple it to look like a bonnet.  I add two 18 inch lengths of cloth ribbon.

Before Thanksgiving, we re-enacted the harvest feast/diplomatic summit of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags.  The kindergarten girls baked and served real cornbread to a few kindergarten boys dressed as Pilgrim men.  More of the boys represented the Wampanoag men because there were more of them present at the feast in 1621.  When the Wampanoags arrived wearing their beaded necklaces, they turned back to the "woods" to pretend to get some more food.  They then joined the Pilgrim "men" and were served cornbread, too.  After all the males were served, the Pilgrim "women" ate and cleaned up.  The "men" gathered in a circle to discuss the problem over land.  Then, they held a foot race (baby steps across the classroom floor.)

I loved the reactions of the kindergarteners!  There was some good, critical thinking happening.  Some of the girls were a little frustrated by having to wait to eat their cornbread.  Some wished they could sit with the boys. We talked about how girls have choices nowadays but they didn't always.  At first, the boys were a little frustrated that they couldn't work out the land problem.  Someone finally suggested sharing the land and living together would be nice. ( If only.... ) The boys really enjoyed the foot race and were happy when it was a tie between Pilgrims and Wampanoags.

Someone once told me that kindergarteners won't remember what I teach them but they will remember how I made them feel.  I hope this year's class will feel that history lessons are interesting and worth learning.  It's all about planting seeds in kindergarten....

Native Americans, Kindergarten, and Me

Native Americans, Kindergarten, and Me circa 2002

How did I get it SO wrong?!  From the beginning of my career in the 1970s until the implementation of Common Core in 2010, I taught my students about Native Americans and the first Thanksgiving.  I helped the children make elaborate headdresses, constructed teepee dioramas and reading nooks, and made popcorn to share at a classroom feast. I perpetrated MYTHS! 

Here are some FACTS (myths debunked):

• The Wampanoags, the Native American tribe living in the area prior to the English colonization, did not wear many feathers in their hair.  Read more here.
• Teepees were the dwellings of the indigenous people on the plains; the Wampanoag lived in wetus, homes made of branches and tree bark. Find out more.
• And popcorn couldn't be made from the kind of corn grown in the northeast. See this article.

Thanks to PBS shows and great websites like the ones in the above links, I know so much more REAL history now than I did at the beginning of my career. There were fewer resources earlier in my teaching career.  For the most part, I relied on the (erroneous) history I had learned during my own schooling.  

There was one concept that I always got right:  Native Americans are a living, breathing people.  I wanted my students to understand this fact at the very beginning of our studies.  Several times in the 1980s and 1990s, I contacted the American Indian Center in Chicago and asked them to send volunteers to talk with my students. Jenelle, a Potawotamie, visited my classroom two years in a row.  As a medicine woman in her tribe, she wore a jingle dress and showed us a healing shawl.  She also brought me gifts of an authentic dream catcher and rattle which I shared to the delight of my class for many years.

For the past six years, however,  I have not taught my students about Native Americans.  I could not find a way to fit this topic into our Common Core ELA units.  But this year, being my last year in the classroom, I wanted to revisit how to best teach kindergarteners about Native Americans and the first Thanksgiving.  I really wanted to get it right!  I wanted my students to understand that Native Americans are people whose families have ALWAYS lived in America and that they have a heritage that appreciates nature and crafts.  

Here is what I did this year in kindergarten "to plant seeds of understanding" in young minds:

• I started our study of Native Americans in the last week of our communities unit.  In the first weeks of the unit, we learned about our own community which is a suburb of Chicago.  We discussed the diversity in our community during our Morning Meeting.  I pointed out that we had friends in our classrooms whose parents came from the Philippines, Mexico, India, and Bangladesh.  We found these places on the map and globe and practiced greeting each other in the languages spoken by our friends' parents.  
• After a few weeks of appreciating the fact that many of our classmates' parents came from other countries, I sent home a map with each child and asked families to list and color in their countries of origin.  When the individual maps were returned, I colored in all of the different countries of origin on a large world map.  I explained that although most of our classmates parents were born in America, their grandparents or great- grandparents ( or great-great- grandparents) were not. 
• Last week, I explained that there are some Americans whose families have always lived in America.  We call these people Native Americans. We watched a video about two present day Wampanoag girls who dressed in regalia and re-enacted life in a 17th century Wampanoag village.  This video is available to teachers who subscribe to Scholastic magazines.  My students loved this video and had much to say about it.
• During our Morning Meeting, we practiced greeting each other using a Wampanoag word, pronounced wah-nee-kee-suck.
• I selected a few read-alouds for the week which shared information about Native Americans.  Tapenum's Day by Kate Waters is very captivating.  Kindergarteners seem to understand a story is REAL when there are photos.  Also, if you want to get your students to ask questions, this book will prompt them. We read Thunder Boy, Jr. by Sherman Alexie to appreciate a modern-day Native American family.  I also shared how some Native Americans re-name their children as they grow older according to their talents or achievements.  My kindergarteners had lots of fun thinking up new names for themselves (Lots of "Fast Runner" monikers!) We read Nickommoh! by Jackie French Koller which describes a typical Narragansett harvest celebration, as it has been performed since before the arrival of the first Pilgrims in New England. That being said, there really is a need for more age-appropriate kindergarten literature on Native Americans.  

                         

• At the end of the week, we made Native American drums out of cylindrical containers the children brought from home.  We decorated them with pictographs and patterns of circles to resemble beads.  We also made noodle necklaces (mix a few drops of food coloring in a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol and pour on a cookie sheet, roll uncooked mostaccioli noodles in it and let dry overnight.)  I know these crafts are "old school" but the 17th century Wampanoags did have drums and did wear beaded necklaces of various materials (I know, I know, not mostaccioli noodles.) There are lots of good math tie-ins with these simple projects, too: drawing shapes and making patterns.
• Next week, we will have our own Nickommoh and wear our beads and play our drums.  We loved learning to read and sing "We are Native Americans" which you can view on youtube here.
• When we have our Thanksgiving Feast, we will not be playing our drums because it's unlikely the Puritanical Pilgrims would have countenanced that.  More about our Thanksgiving Feast in my next post!

I'm not sure I have created the perfect kindergarten study of Native Americans yet. I have tried to be respectful of a living American culture and true to its history.  I do know that kindergarteners love learning about this topic.  One little girl keeps bubbling over with enthusiasm for the "Creative Americans," a passion that I share with her!

Halloween: A Kindergarten Teacher's Survival Kit

Actually, Halloween fell on a Tuesday this year.  Witches no better, haha ....

And, actually, I spent a lot of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pondering whether or not I would miss the hoopla surrounding Halloween when I'm retired next year.  I mean, there are aspects of Halloween that I really like!  I LIKE dressing up in a costume...

And I like some of the kids' costumes, as well, especially the sweet and creative ones....

There are two Halloween stories that I share every year with my class.  One uses Lorna Balian's book, Humbug Witch, still available on Amazon. 

Twenty years ago, I made cut-outs of the witch's costume and a drawing of the little girl who is just a 'humbug' witch. I hold the book on my lap and use the cut-outs to "tell" the story.  Here are photos of my humbug witch for any of my crafty blog readers...

The other story that I tell is about a witch who forgets it's Halloween and has no TREATS for the children but a wonderful TRICK.  You can watch me retell this story here.

Needless-to-say, the kids' reactions to these stories are really precious.  Maybe I'll find a venue to continue telling these stories.  When our own children were in preschool, I used to visit their classrooms to share the Humbug Witch and "Tricky Witch." Hmmm....Possibilities!

I know classroom parties can be chaotic.  My solution has been to run the parties as centers: a snack table, an active game, and a couple of quiet games or quick crafts. 

The craft I like best is Punch Pumpkins.  I staple a copy of the punch pumpkin to a sheet of orange construction paper. I put an area rug on a table, lay the punch paper pumpkins on the area rug, and the kids use sharp pencils to poke holes through the dots.  When they are finished, I tear off the photocopied punch pumpkin and they take home the orange construction paper pumpkin.  If they hang these in their windows, the light from inside will shine through and Trick-or-Treaters will see their pumpkins shining in the window.  Here is the punch pumpkin: 

                                  And you can grab your own copy by clicking here.

There is no denying the truth of the above quote: kids are tired from the festivities plus it's no fun for teachers to watch the glucose-cycle in action. But, here are a few tricks-of-the-trade: the day after Halloween should have a familiar routine, lessons should include easy, quiet activities like repetitive counting, tracing, coloring, and listening to soothing stories.

So, will I miss Halloween next year?  Who-oo knows?!!!