An American Thanksgiving: Primer (Ages 6 to 8)

How a harvest feast in 1621 became a national holiday. Your children meet the people who carried the idea of a day of thanks from Plymouth to the White House, and learn a song the whole family already half knows.

Primer level: ages 6 to 8, read together. 12 printable letter-size pages: a two-page lesson and a one-page Family Key for each of the four weeks.

The four weeks

• Week 1, The Harvest of 1621: the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and Squanto at Plymouth.
• Week 2, A Nation Gives Thanks: George Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation of 1789.
• Week 3, The Mother of Thanksgiving: Sarah Josepha Hale's long campaign, and Abraham Lincoln's answer.
• Week 4, Over the River: Lydia Maria Child and the poem that became a holiday song.

Each week has a short story to read aloud together, words to know, a picture to draw, simple questions, a line to copy, and a question to talk about. Memory work is the first two stanzas of "Over the River and Through the Wood," a little at a time. The Family Key gives the answers, what to listen for, a dinner-table question, and background for parents.

Instant PDF download. No prep: just print and go. Print as many copies as the children in your own household need.