Thanksgiving at Lyneham Primary

It all started way back in September when I found out that the head teacher wanted cross-curricular activites for reception(pre-k) - year 6 (5th grade). Scary!!! I wrote to all the teachers in Dry Creek asking for help and files. They were very helpful, but most of the stuff was for reception - year 2. Then I surfed the net endlessly until I gathered enough information or websites for the teachers to use for planning. Next I was asked to figure out the paper order for the school to complete the painted hand turkey and the thankful turkey, and the cost of the food for the whole school. The office staff was great! They were really helpful and never said that I couldn't have anything I asked for. Pauline even went into Wooten Bassett and bought the corn meal for corn bread. They eat a lot of sweet corn (yellow corn), but cornmeal is very hard to come by...who knew?? Anyway, every thing was ordered and set to go. I put the sign-up sheet for the teacher potluck up, and Pauline agreed to make the turkey! The stuffing is different over here, so I made American stuffing...I had to cube the bread first! It was a major hit though. I was asked to make it again at the teachers' Christmas potluck and Christmas dinner at Miri's house. I think I started a trend. They all wanted the recipe! It was yummy! Once everything was set, Kate wrote a risk assessment. We needed to show that we had thought of any injury the kids might come to in the prep and eating of the food...even that the micro popcorn might have scalding steam when the bags were opened.
The actual day started off with an assembly led by me...my first one. I talked a bit about the history of the holiday. Thank God for teaching "Squanto" for the last several years. Then I shared a movie that I made from my trip to Plymouth and Cape Cod last year. The hall was absolutely silent. I have no idea what I did or said, maybe it was the accent, but they were all very intrigued with the story. Then we went to work on our projects we were going to work on with other grade levels. My group had decided to make totem pole...I know wrong tribe, but that's what they wanted to do. They turned out really cool...about 5 feet tall with each class's bird at the top. The year 6's did a great job on the tops. After lunch, we had our parties. There were our 6 classes having a feast in the school hall...180+ kids squeezed in. We had veg soup, corn muffins, apple muffins, rolls, homemade butter (which didn't really make it around before the rolls were gone, oh, well!), and sparkling fruit juice. Then there were 4 classes having popcorn and playing games that they had made up based on the path of the Mayflower...they were made by 2nd graders for reception kids. Wow!! The last 4 classes had muffins and did various mixed grade activities. One class did a reader's theater of the feast. Another class drew giant posters of the Mayflower...I'm not sure what the other 2 classes did though. All the classes did a great job and had a super time! They all wanted to know when they would be able to do it again! Year 4 continued to study the Thanksgiving story. We read "If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620," then made big posters of what we learned. My class researched various parts of the story from both the Pilgrim and Wampanoag sides and designed a Publisher page with pictures and text. Ann's class drew and watercolored 12x18" pictures of the Mayflower. They were so amazing that I'm bringing color copies of them home! What a great week!