An American Thanksgiving: Journal (Ages 12 to 14)

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 stirring poem about the Pilgrims’ landing.

Journal level: ages 12 to 14, independent work. 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 longer reading, a Spotlight, a Quote of the Week, primary sources to read closely, words in context, and a short essay question that asks your student to make a case from the evidence. Memory work is all ten stanzas of Felicia Hemans's "The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers" (1826), a few each week. The Family Key gives the answers, what to look 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.