Hey y’all. So I recall learning about the first Thanksgiving when I was in elementary school in Mountain Home. I remember the teacher telling us about the Pilgrims and how they dispersed into the original 13 colonies. We then progressed into how these colonists met the Native Americans and became good friends with the Native Americans. I remember Squanto, which was the Native American who interpreted the English to the Native Americans and vice versa. He and some of the colonists decided to make a great feast in order to give thanks to God for such a blessed new life and a new beginning. I believe they feasted for several days, in which everybody had a very fun time. They ate water fowl, turkey, had cornucopias, corn, potatoes, etc. Also, that reminds me that the Native Americans taught the colonists about growing corn in order to sustain their growing population.

Some of the activities that I can remember doing in school are the How to cook a turkey article, coloring a Thanksgiving turkey, coloring Pilgrim pictures, reading about the Pilgrims and then doing a crossword or some sort of related activity. We also watched the School House Rock videos, studied what the Pilgrims wore, how they wanted to escape the rule of the King and practice religious tolerance, and I’m sure there are more activities but I can’t really remember them at the moment.

Pete Cook