First Thanksgiving

Last year I decided to try something new in one of my classes and see if there was some movement lessons that could be learned. I found little contour line drawings of the characters in the first thanksgiving story and I colored them and told the simple story of the Native Americans and the Pilgrims helping each other and have a dinner of gratitude. The story we learned every year in Elementary School. I started the class with the question, “Who knows the story of the first thanksgiving and can share it with us?” I wanted to know the foundation these children had of happened. Well in one of my four year old classes I received an answer that has both changed my outlook on the first thanksgiving story as well as how much we can learn from children. This little girls answer went something like this…

“There was a group of people that lived far away on the other side of the world, on an island. Their king would not let them worship God the way they wanted to so they got on boats.  They traveled a long time to a new world where they hoped they would be able to worship God the way they wanted to. They were having a hard time in the new world because it was different, so the nice people that lived their already, the Indians, taught them how to live, by how and what to plant and when. They were able to share with the Indians as well. So during their the fall they decided to have a dinner to say thank you to each other and God for giving them a place they could worship Him.”

I had always heard the story in a secular school and so having God as a major roll I had not really considered. Thinking about it I should have put two and two together. However it took a child’s simple telling me of a story I thought I already understood for me to really grasp the message of this story. I am ever so grateful to this child telling and they parent or teacher that taught her the story this way. After the her telling I took out my paper characters and told the story with them. The children then did a beautiful dance about the story and gratitude.