Engage Your Kids on Thanksgiving
WITH THESE GRATITUDE-THEMED GAMES
Test Your Thanksgiving Tradition Knowledge WHAT, NO TURKEY? Thanksgiving is an excellent time to teach children about gratefulness. By planning some fun, gratitude-themed games, you can impart a valuable lesson and spend some quality family time together. Get your kids in the holiday spirit by adding a Thanksgiving twist to these classic games. Pictionary Want to bring out your kids’ creative sides? Pictionary is the perfect way to encourage artistic expression and grateful thinking. Try adding a rule where players have to draw something they’re grateful for. This will get your kids thinking beyond turkey and stuffing and give them an imaginative way to express their gratitude. Plus, who doesn’t love a good art contest? Guess Who? To play gratitude-themed Guess Who?, have each participant write down their name and something they’re thankful for on a slip of paper and put it in a bowl. Then, at the dinner table, have each person draw a random slip and read what it says without saying the name while everyone else tries to guess who wrote it. While Pictionary may get your kids talking about what they are thankful for, Guess Who? will tune them into what others around them are thankful for too. Most Americans know the first Thanksgiving as a celebration of unity between Pilgrim newcomers and Western natives, but did you know there’s more to this story? As you carve up the turkey this year, share these little-known first Thanksgiving facts with your family. Keep the good times rollin’! One day of feasting and merriment wasn’t enough for this ceremonious event. The first Thanksgiving actually lasted three days sometime between September and November of 1621. Plymouth Gov. William Bradford invited the Native Americans to celebrate with the colonists, who were ecstatic to discover their first successful corn harvest. This may seem gluttonous, but consider the hardships the two groups had endured up until that point. After a 66-day ocean journey to escape religious persecution in Europe in 1620, the Pilgrims battled a harsh winter, disease, death, and unfamiliarity in a new land. Meanwhile, the Wampanoag tribe was fighting to keep their homes and traditions alive among new invaders. It was only when a formerly enslaved Native American — Squanto of the Patuxet tribe — showed the Pilgrims mercy and the proper way to farm did they find agricultural success. Squanto was also pivotal in forming an alliance between the Pilgrims and local tribes.
Pick-Up Sticks Like regular pick-up sticks, the goal is to remove a stick from a haphazard pile without disturbing the others. However, by using colored sticks that represent different kinds of thankfulness — such as places, people, or food — you can make players think outside the box. This will ensure you get a wide range of creative, thoughtful answers whenever the kids pick up a stick. These modified games are great for helping your kids realize how much they have to be thankful for. Use these to spend some fun, educational, quality time with your family this Thanksgiving.
There was really no better way to celebrate than with a three-day potluck. Pass the venison, please!
Historians are still unclear as to what the settlers and Native Americans enjoyed for
three days of celebrating, but they do have a few clues. Journal entries cite Gov. Bradford sending men on a “fowling” journey, while others claim the Wampanoag tribe brought five deer to the feast. However, historians do know what was likely not present at the event. Since the sugar supply on the Pilgrims’ ship, the Mayflower, had run out, there likely weren’t any pies like the ones we commonly enjoy today. Instead, it was strictly a meat-and-potatoes kind of union. For curiosity’s sake, there’s never been any word on whether turkey was ever even part of the celebration. As you sit down to a feast on modern delicacies like baked sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and Butterball turkeys this Thanksgiving, don’t forget the long and strange journey this holiday has taken to get you there.
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