the story of thanksgiving: take two

many of you may remember the utter horror of last year's retelling of the story of thanksgiving. this year i gave the kids a variety of puzzles and lessons on thanksgiving, hoping that the basic concept (pilgrims came to america from england, then had big dinner with native americans) would sink in. we did crossword puzzles. we did fill in the blanks sheets. we watched a very very boring and stupid video. we played hangman. i thought i had done a decent job.

so today as we made these super cute construction paper turkeys (pictures to be posted later), i asked the dreaded question ... "so why do we celebrate thanksgiving?"

out of 9 kids (grades 4-5), only one raised her hand. i call on her and she says, "we celebrate thanksgiving because sometimes someone has a birthday near thanksgiving and we celebrate it."
yup, that girl is in 5th grade.

then kid who hates hoboes piped up and said, "we celebrate thanksgiving because the pilgrims came to america and had a feast with the native americans."

"yes!" i screamed, "that's right!"

then kid who hates hoboes went on to say that the pilgrims came from england on the mayflower. england? mayflower? where did he learn these crazy words? is it possible, dear dear blog readers, that kid who hates hoboes learned these words from me? no. he immediately told me that he learned this stuff last night after watching the charlie brown thanksgiving special on tv.

grrrrrrr.

note to self: purchase charlie brown thanksgiving dvd for library.


p.s. happy thanksgiving.