Every year in our 4&5 yr. old Master's Club class, we teach the children about the first Thanksgiving. It is a great chance to explain to the children how God takes care of His people. We tell them how God went before the pilgrims and allowed Squanto to learn the English language. I am sure that this was a time in his life where it didn't seem that God was there to take care of him. Later God greatly used that indian's knowledge of English to preserve His people who wanted to freely worship Him. What a powerful lesson to the children that God WILL take care of you!
1Pe 5:7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Ps 56:3 What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
For the Thanksgiving week,
we always have a special craft for the kids to make and take home.
This year I found an idea on line and changed it alot to make it my own. Here is what we did.
Each child made this Thanksgiving set of spoon puppets to take home.
As they made each puppet,
we talked about the part that each character played in the first Thanksgiving.
To prepare for the craft, I designed a headpiece and outfit for each spoon puppet,
and a band to sit around our clementine turkey.
I used these four Stampin Up paper punches
and differant colors of Stampin Up cardstock to create thier head pieces and outfits.
I made the headpieces and outfits ahead of time.
In class each child placed the pieces on thier spoons with a glue dot.
The teachers secured thier pieces on the back with a piece of clear tape.
Then each child drew a face on each of thier spoon puppets.
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| SQUANTO |
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| PILGRIM MAN |
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| PILGRIM LADY |
For the turkey, I cut a 1 x 8 1/2 in. paper strip and taped it in a circle that would hold a clementine (our 4&5 yr. olds love when I take clementines to class).
I handcut the head and beak of the turkey,
but the tail feathers are punched from Stampin Up's Scalop Oval Punch.
To attach the feathers, we put a strip of double-sided sticky tape
on the back and allowed the kids to pick & place thier own feathers.
We then secured the feathers with a piece of clear tape over top.
The children thoroughly enjoyed making thier own pilgrims, indian, and turkey.
Each made plans to take them home to tell the
First Thanksgiving story to thier families on Thanksgiving Day.
It is such a blessed thing to instill in a small child the character of giving thanks!