Thanksgiving celebration homeschool style

This morning after a very quick session of reading and math, we made cranberry orange scones and got ready to go to the Urbans. My kids were so excited, except Caleb was a bit whiney, even after a nap! We started out the time together making hand and feet turkeys. Originally, you were supposed to trace around your feet and hands, cut them out, the feet were the body and the hands were the feathers. Charissa and I thought they'd enjoy it more with painting their hands and feet then putting them on paper and cutting that out.

It was a little chaotic as we had 6 kids and 2 adults to help everyone get done and then remembering which hands/feet belongs to whom. I did write names or initials, but some disappeared anyway only to show up after we were all done! We even did Caleb and Ava's, which was NOT fun for Caleb. He balled up his fists and pulled so hard on me to make me stop. Alas, only 3 hands for him and his foot went missing! The kids did well, though. After they were dry, we cut them out and glued them into turkey shapes and they wrote on them what they were thankful for. It's very sweet to read them.

We played the JINGO game and the kids did really well remembering the things we'd learned about the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. Homeschooled kids are so smart!

We were going to make hats, but it turned out the moms made the hats, Leisel and Catherine modeled them for about the time it took to take the picture and then were done.

After we made the hats and put the turkeys together, we gather for our Thanksgiving feast. The Urbans had made the Cranberry (bear berry) jelly, bannock cakes and Indian pudding. We brought succotash stew and scones. We didn't feel right about having the kids drink beer, but the Pilgrims hated water and that's what they drank! Just teasing, we had hot tea.

One more round of crafts before it was all over. They painted welcome signs and it was amazing how quiet they got! Really, it was the quietest they'd been all day! Pure silence that was soothing to our ears.

Samuel's say "Not WELCOME unles your a boy!" we did try to hot glue some center pieces together, too, but they'd had enough and it was time to go. Amazing how fast 3 1/2 hours go! We were very thankful to have friends to celebrate with and look forward to our Christmas party! Maybe we'll go lighter on the crafts next time.