How Are You Celebrating?

I was just reading an article that one school in the eastern part of the US has decided not to celebrate any of the fall “holidays” because of controversy.

I know that in many schools Halloween has “bitten the dust” for a variety of reasons, but I found it quite surprising that this principal is also forgoing anything to do with Thanksgiving as “not everyone celebrates it” and she doesn’t feel that it appropriately depicts Native Americans.

Personally, I’m glad that my school offers teachers a lot of lee-way in the various holidays, and has asked for a great deal of parent in-put in how we handle celebrating and studying about the various fall festivities.

There’s a huge amount of history, social studies and geography that can be covered in a variety of fun ways when dealing with the first Thanksgiving.

When I taught kindergarten we enjoyed being part of an all-school kindergarten Thanksgiving feast (4 classes), complete with either a pilgrim paper hat and collar or a Native American vest and headband.  Children could choose which they wanted to be.

We played a traditional Native American CD as background music. Students sat on the floor in the cafeteria, with a long sheet of brown bulletin board paper as their “table”.

Some years my Y5’s have enjoyed a tempting Thanksgiving “Tasting” feast.  To read that article, click on the link.  I was wondering what everyone else is doing or not doing, and would enjoy hearing from you.

diane@teachwithme.com Thanks for sharing!