Thanksgiving Week: Day 1
I love the story of Thanksgiving. It is a story of inclusion (click here) and interdependence.
A group of pioneer families risk it all and travel to a strange land. They gratefully accept the help of the Native Americans who look different, speak a different language, have different cultural and religious beliefs. At first they are fearful of the differences, eventually they peacefully trade, share and learn from each other. The Native Americans welcome them into this new people and environment. But the Native Americans save the pilgrims from starvation (yea, corn, pumpkins, turkeys…) and disease (yea, the cranberry). Both groups still value their own cultural beliefs and traditions, but as neighbors they become an interdependent community which shares the hard work and sacrifice. Then, after a successful harvest, they do what every culture since the beginning of time does, they are thankful and celebrate.
As an early childhood teacher and special education professional I looked for ways to teach about cooperation, collaboration, and community. I looked for ways to include my students with special needs into the “normalized” (click here) holiday school programs and activities. I looked for ways to differentiate the curriculum so even the students with the most severe disabilities could partially participate.
Inclusion success stories for ALL children:
White Gifts for the Food Bank:
The entire school sponsored a “white gift” program for Thanksgiving. Each child brought in a non-perishable food item for the local food bank. The children decorated and wrapped the gifts in white tissue paper and put them into donated laundry baskets to distribute.
Thanksgiving Day Program:
I paraphrased and adapted the songs and dances so everyone could participate. We used the songs below in both large whole school programs and our individual class programs.
Bringing in the Community:
These were always crowd favorites. We would sing the songs, have someone dress up like a turkey and strut around. (One time it was the principal, one time a favorite music/gym teacher, sometimes a parent or a student from the high school drama club.) The turkey also lead the rhythm band for a couple songs. When we had a music teacher, she taught the rhythm band, after the cutbacks the teacher did it.
Each student made a picture for their families. If they were able, they wrote and read a sentence of what they were thankful for to the group. If the student couldn’t read, write or talk, they had a picture or the actual object they were thankful for (A picture of their family or a grandparent, a flower…) They might use a tape recorder, or ask their friends to say it with them.
For the grand finale, the class would line-dance to the traditional music of Turkey in the Straw and Old Joe Clark (the gym teacher helped teach the dances).
Finally, we ask the parents, brothers – sisters to join in for the Turkey in the Straw square and Old Joe Clark square dance classics.
The students created and colored/painted the programs, created unique tickets if we had limited seating, and they collected the tickets at the door. The words to all the songs were in the program so the children and parents could read and sing them together at home.
Refreshments:
The day before the program we had everyone bring in a piece of fruit for each person who was coming, the class made fruit salad, corn bread and cookies for the refreshments. Extra parents volunteered the day we made the fruit salad, corn bread and cookies. We had about 6 different kinds of fruit and vegetable peelers. We set up “stations” with a parent as supervisor of each station. Everyone participated, or partially participated according to their abilities.
Disabilities were not the issue, it was how can this person participate.
Decorations:
The students decorated the room and bulletin boards. We made several large murals of fruit cornacopeia, or a farm or grocery fruit and vegetable stand, or garden….
During our group story time, we used poster board to plan what we would do, and who would be responsible. We divided up the chores. The children chose how they wanted to do it. We usually combined the farm,Thanksgiving, food and/or autumn thematic units so the bulletin boards and room were decorated at least a week ahead of time. All learning activities focused on the thematic unit, were tied to standardized goals and IEP goals.
Children Giving the Tour:
Before the program, the students gave their parents and guests a tour of the classroom explaining what we were doing, what they were learning.
After the program, the parents got to take all their child’s work home to show grandma and grandpa or other friends on Thanksgiving day.
On Thanksgiving Day
Many families told us the whole family sang the songs and some used the “On Thanksgiving” song as part of the grace at Thanksgiving dinner. It really was a nice way of bringing the families into our program and letting the children be the experts and teach the songs, games to their families.
SONGS:
Ole Mr. Turkey
Who’s that struttin’ round lookin’ mighty perky?
Looks like it might be old Mister Turkey.
Strut Mr. Turkey that’s a fancy way to walk
Strut Mr. Turkey that’s a fancy way to walk.
Gobble, Gobble, Gobble
I’m a mighty fine turkey and I sing a fine song,
GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE, GOBBLE
I strut around the barnyard all the day long and my head goes
BOBBLE BOBBLE BOBBLE.
TUNE: FRIERE JACQUES – Round
(In our school program, I took a song the children knew, rewrote the words, and chose one child to be the “conductor” for each part of the round. Another time in a whole school program, three different classes each sang a different part of the round.)
On Thanksgiving, on Thanksgiving
We are glad, we are glad.
For all the special blessings, all the special blessings
That we have, that we have.
(repeat 3 times)
TUNE: Turkey in the Straw
(I paraphrased the words so we could act it out.)
Oh, a turkey is a bird, just as proud as can be.
He struts around with his tail in the breeze.
He makes gobble noises at everyone he sees.
But thanksgiving is coming, and that’s not make-believe!
RUN TURKEY, HIDE TURKEY
Turkey in the straw, turkey in the hay,
Where oh where will the turkey be
When the table is set Thanksgiving Day? (rub tummy)
In Winter
(Transition verse- putting on coats, getting in line….)
In winter when it’s cold and snows
I have to wear a lot of clothes.
If only I were like a bear
I wouldn’t have all this to wear.
Whatever weather she is in,
She grows her coat right on her skin.
Comments:
What are some of your memories? How did the teacher include ALL students, including the students with disabilities in their activities? What were some of the lessons of that first Thanksgiving that apply to building community and celebrating diversity?
Keep Climbing: Onward and Upward
All my best,
Mary
I found this to be very encouraging with the holiday coming up. Many times this is a way for all of the family to come together when you often don’t see them throughout the year. Why not include EVERYONE? I think these activities are a great way to allow everyone to be focused on how joyful this holiday can truly be. I liked the examples here.
Great Shelby. I hope you can use them in your personal and professional life. They say the BIGGEST problem for people with disabilities is loneliness. Any activity that brings people together is a bit of hope.
I really liked this article. It never occurred to me that Thanksgiving is an example of inclusion. I think it is great that you found ways to include everyone in the fun and teach a lesson all at the same time.
That is the blessing and the curse of being a teacher–it’s a way of life. 🙂
Rachel, you will find connections everywhere you look. And this gives you opportunities for your self and the many wonderful young people whose lives you will be reaching.
I love the songs with the turkeys, I will admit I sang them in my head as I read them. I thought that this was a great program to bring families together. I liked how the students gave the parents a tour.
I’m teaching the songs to my granddaughter and Aaron sits there and laughs at us. It’s so fun. 🙂
These Thanksgiving activities are a social story often mentioned in class often times. I was glad to see it applied in another situation so relevant to life, especially the holidays.
This is so heartwarming! I think it’s great to have examples like this of ways that everyone, disabled or no, as well as parents, can come together and create something that sounds like a lot of fun! It’s good to have a common bond like that to bring people together. After all, everyone in America has Thanksgiving in common, so it’s something that everyone can relate to, as shown here.
Have a great Thanksgiving Rachel. We do have so much to be thankful for. And I add you and all our class to that list. Each of you has so many gifts to share with our children. 🙂
I am really thankful to this topic because it really gives great information ,-“
Glad you liked it. We need all the advocates for Inclusion and Interdependence we can get.
u r a hell of a writer. I really love your writing style, it is so very entertaining.
Glad to have you here. Hope you’ll share your story.
This web site is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you’ll definitely discover it.
Glad you like the information. Hope you’ll stop by again and tell us more about yourself.
This is the perfect blog for anyone who wants to know about this topic. You know so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I really would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a subject thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!
Thanks Anita. Share some of your stories.
Well written posting, well researched and useable for me in the future.I am so glad you took the time and effort to write this posting. Will be back soon.
Glad you stopped by Marlena. Useable is good!
This blog seems to receive a large amount of visitors. How do you promote it? It offers a nice individual spin on things. I guess having something useful or substantial content to talk about is the most important thing.
I like to think visitors are coming because of the great content. It is difficult to find supports and resources for people with disabilities, I’m hoping to build a community that shares life experiences and resources.
Awesome post! I don’t know why Google doesn’t make it easier to find this kind of stuff…. Keep it coming though!
Thanks Lemuel. One way to help Google find my site is by making comments. Apparently the number of comments and number of visitors to the site are some of the ways Google’s “spiderbots” scroll and rate the credibility of a site.
I have been absent for a while, but now I remember why I used to love this blog. Thank you, I’ll try and check back more often.
Thanks Jenee, hope you’ll share some of your personal stories.
I’m glad I chose to read this one. Nice work!
Thanks Tory, hope you’ll keep stopping by.
What a wonderful program Mary! I am going to forward it to a friend of mine who is also a special education teacher. I am sure she will find some great things here that she could incorporate into her classroom. Thank you!
Thanks Christy, it was a win-win everyone loved it. I repeated parts of it, changed some, adapted according to the talents of the kids. Now we would call it differentiation. It does make me smile to remember. Hope your friend can find some pieces to use. Ask questions if she needs additional information.
We didn’t/don’t have children with disabilities in our school. Go figure.
Lots of activities around Thanksgiving in Kindergarten but stopped abruptly after that.
Common goals (survival, in this case) and celebrating that fact along with seeing everyone as having the right to coexist are the lessons we can take from the first Thanksgiving.
It’s funny how at age 61, I am still learning new messages from that first thanksgiving story.
It was enjoyable reading Mary. Tonight I usher a dance program at MIM-Musical Instrument Museum, that includes kids with intellectual disabilities. It is called”A Joyous Christmas” with the AZDance group. Check out the MIM website.
Glad you enjoyed it Marti. Your musical program looks great too.