To be quite honest I have very little memory of years prior to high school due to an injury. I am/will however to do my best. First I remember there being something about the Mayflower however nothing ever mentioned about other ships, just the Mayflower. They landed in Plymouth trying to flee religious persecution in England. Once they landed the weather was significantly different than in England. Since they weren’t ready for the harsh environment they didn’t know how to grow the right foods to grow for the environment. Due to this they starved and froze to near death. On the brink of death “Indians” aided in the survival of the pilgrims. One specific Indian, Squanto befriended the pilgrims since he knew how to speak English. Squanto knew English from prior travels with other settlers England. Squanto and his tribe assisted the pilgrims in their survival by showing the practically everything. He showed them how to grow crops, build shelter and even multiple methods of cooking. Without the help they would never had survived. The thanksgiving meal was a means of appreciation towards the natives.

Some of the crafts that I recall doing was making a turkey place mat out of the outline of my hand. Along with the place mat there was Indian hats made out of paper and a paper feather. A big thing that would happen would be a big potluck that was done. Of course it involving food I can only remember that. In the potluck the food brought was things such as turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, rolls, pumpkin pie, corn, and something to drink. While I would start to eat, they teacher would tell us what they actually ate. For example instead of raised rolls there would have been a unleavened bread, instead of turkey they had pheasant or quail. They would also have more root based vegetables. The teachers explained that there wasn’t really anything sweet on the table in the 1600’s since sugar was very rare.

Every November up until 6^th grade marked the beginning of Thanksgiving celebrations and history in our classes.  When hearing the stories we were provided with pictures of cartoon characters, the pilgrims had large black hats and the native Americans were always wearing tan clothing and had huge colorful feathers decorating their hair.  We were taught that the first Thanksgiving was for the pilgrims to thank the Native Americans for their aid in successfully growing crops after a harsh winter.  The feast lasted for several days as a celebration to show thanks for everything that they had.

The activities we did in class for Thanksgiving mostly included crafts.  These crafts were tracing our hands and decorating them as turkeys, coloring in feathers and the hats the pilgrims wore.  We also made paper cornucopias and put pictures of our favorite foods in it.  The day before we had Thanksgiving Break we would have a potluck in class, the teacher would bring turkey and the whole class would bring side dishes to eat.  As we were eating we would go around and share what we were thankful for.

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