The week of Thanksgiving is always a busy week, but if you homeschool it’s doubly busy when you’re fitting school time into the mix. (See Barbara Frank’s simple solution below!) However, there are plenty of learning opportunities and combining the two can make things go a little smoother (I said can...). I’d like to share a few ideas of my own, and then I have some monster resources for everything from Thanksgiving printables to lesson plans for teaching the origins of the holiday.

Kid’s Holiday Recipe Notebook

Aside from a few extra Thanksgiving crafts, most of your time spent on Thanksgiving usually involves cooking and baking. So beginning a notebook with all your family recipes for your children can be fun and provide a lasting treasure. Any 3-ring binder and a batch of 3 ring transparent sheet covers is all you need. It can be as simple as printing a recipe by hand or off the internet and placing it into a sheet cover.

If you really want to capture some memories,  you could take pictures in the kitchen while baking a family recipe and include them with the recipe in the book. How much would you like to have pictures of your mom cooking the family’s favorite pumpkin pie when you were little? (or maybe not..) You could add some of your children’s own artwork or the Thanksgiving clip art listed below instead.

Keeping Little Ones Busy

Keeping little ones busy with some measuring cups and flour or some other not too messy food has worked for us at times (depending on ages and time constraints). Rice or beans work if you know they won’t try to eat them. Set them up on a cookie sheet (one with sides) to contain the mess, and let them scoop out with smaller measure cups (1/4 or 1/3) and pour into a 2-4 cup measure, counting as they go. A plastic knife works good to practice leveling flour in a measure cup. Making playdough “food” is another good past time…if you have available work space.

If you’re not that ambitious, having some Thanksgiving coloring pages printed out ahead of time can be a quick solution when little ones start to get under foot but you would still like them to feel a part of the Thanksgiving preparations.

Teaching Children To Be Thankful

Teaching children to be thankful in our world that so much is taken for granted isn’t always easy. I guess I’m thankful for a national holiday to remind us to make it an issue! One of the most meaningful crafts that we received one year was done by my daughter’s three children. They made the ‘turkey with a traced hand’*(see link below for a how-to) for each guest expected at the table Thanksgiving Day.  Then, mom, dad, and each child wrote one thing they appreciated about that family member (or friend). This grandma loved those so much they were prominently displayed for almost a year.

Also, see the “Say Thank You In 100 Languages!” below:

Choice Online Resources For Thanksgiving Day Ideas:

About.com has a list of Thanksgiving Day resources for the homeschool family, including everything from printables, suggested books, poetry, activities and more. Their guide to Family Crafts has an list you’ll love for Thanksgiving craft ideas, too.

About.com also has a great, concise explanation of the first Thanksgiving, AND another page of activities from Terri Mauro’s Guide to Special Children.

These are all websites you’ll want to bookmark, About.com is one of my favorite sources for good ideas.

Lesson Plans For Thanksgiving:

You’ll find a wealth of ideas from the National Education Association. I especially like the “Say Thank You In 100 Languages!” and some really cute  Thanksgiving placemat ideas.

Teacher Vision has an amazing list, but appears to be a paid subscription site. However, there is a free trial you can take a peek with! Let us know if you have any experience with this site, we’ll have to do a review on it soon. It looks really good.

The Lesson Plans Page has a list of great T-day teaching ideas. They also have the instructions for the *‘turkey with a traced hand’ I mentioned above*.

Kaboose.com has a list of Thanksgiving books organized according to age.

Mahalo.com has quite a few resources you’ll like

Some cute Thanksgiving clip art:

http://www.webweaver.nu/clipart/thanksgiving.shtml

http://www.designedtoat.com/thanksgiving.htm

http://holidays.kaboose.com/thanks-clipart.html

http://www.andynortnik.com/royaltyfreethanksgivingclipart.htm

Best Advice To Simplify Thanksgiving For Homeschoolers:

And last but not least, if you are having Thanksgiving at your house and you homeschool, Barbara Frank has some excellent advice: Don’t do school this week! She also has a schedule to help you plan and simplify Thanksgiving,  children helping.

My biggest problem with keeping Thanksgiving simple is attempting too much. The Martha Stewart syndrome is contagious, and the more I look at all these sites for ideas to share, the more I want to do! My kids are always reminding me that they would rather have me sit with them and talk or play games than have anything else.

I am VERY thankful for that.

What are your best suggestions for simplifying Thanksgiving?

Whether you’re looking for some activities to enrich their minds, or to just keep them busy for awhile, these are some of the best websites for kids we’ve found online:

ActivityTV.tv Sooooo many things to do, and HOW to do them! Videos teaching how to make simple (and some not so simple!) recipes, crafts, and much, much, more.  A very safe site for kids that need something to do, organized by age level and difficulty.

Surfnetkids.com – For all the best educational websites for kids-you could design your homeschool curriculum  simply from utilizing all the resources from this one site.  Sign up for the emails that keep you posted on all the latest great websites for kids, or those that are teaching them!

Family Fun – Disney has taken over this site and it’s more fun than ever! You can sort ideas by the age and interest of your child, yet it doesn’t overwhelm you with ads and places to go. So many great craft ideas and fun things to do, you’ll love it on those rainy days. . .  or holiday vacation days!

Kid Sites.com – a portal into more of the best kid’s activity websites.

Crayola.com – This is one site that if you have a K-8 child you will LOVE. Crafts, coloring pages, crafts, even lesson plans for educators and parents. Highly recommended.

FunBrain.com – The leading educational activity site that is a  goldmine for anyone that homeschools!

You’ll find an ocean of fun websites within these recommended “Kid-Safe Browsers” -read our review and a list of the best browsers built just for kids that offers a safe place for them to surf and find their own activities at:

http://mommaschoice.com/2009/09/30/top5_kid_safe_browsers/

Fall is my absolute favorite time of year, and for some reason ignites that part of me that loves doing crafts with the kids. I’m always buying materials for more projects than I’ll finish, but it’s so much fun! Every year it seems the ideas available online get more abundant, and some of this year’s are sooo adorable! Most of these websites are finally figuring out that moms don’t have time for complicated or excessively messy projects and many are suprisingly simple.

Find at Apples For The Teacher

Here’s the best selection we found: (so far)

Apples For The Teacher – A popular site with teachers, crafts are well organized with complete list of supplies needed and appropriate age for the craft-which is mostly primary.    One of our easy favorites is the Paper Plate Pilgrims.

DLTK.com - A family of sites run by a family, this link will take you to a pageful of fun Thanksgiving activities that you will  bookmark if you homeschool. Well organized and with literally NO distractions, you’ll find printables, games, puzzles, coloring pages, recipes, and of course, Thanksgiving Day crafts.

Amazing Moms - The crafts here are significantly more sophisticated, hence a little more time consuming. You will find many for the older crafters in your family, and some could even make a cute housewarming gift if you are going to Grandma’s for turkey. One of our favorites is the Harvest Necklace Craft for girls and the Mayflower Ship of Thanksgiving for boys. Then for mom…

Danielle’s Place - A website where you will find hundreds of inexpensive crafts and activities including complete Sunday school lessons and Bible-based lessons for Christian home schools. You’ll find an activity called ‘Thanksgiving Poem Placemat’ and are given a poem to write on the placemat. You could also write your own poem, or a list of what each child is thankful for on it, too. One year my oldest son wrote a short Thanksgiving Day poem that was so precious it was framed and on the wall for many years. It’s now or never!

Family Fun - Activity and craft lists are never complete without taking a look at what Family Fun has to offer. Napkin rings, placecards, centerpieces, and lots of printables, there is way too many cute ones to mention just one. You have to check out Thanksgiving Turkey Luminarias-it’s one I’ve never seen before.

I’m sure there’s many more, and we’ll add more as we find ones on different mom-blogs-like yours? Comment below and share yours!

Definitely worth checking out!
Microsoft Education >> Lesson Plans

Looking for an online geometry course or resources to supplement what you may already have? Here you go!

Ed Helper offers a wealth of information for elementary to  high school, from weekly lessons to printables to charts and more:   www.edhelper.com/geometry.htm

An interactive geometry website: http://www.learner.org/interactives/geometry/index.html

A full 9th grade online geometry course: www.freeworldu.org/Flashcards/BrowseFlashcardCategory177.aspx

The Teacher’s Cafe has a list of geometry resources and worksheets for grades 4-12:   http://theteacherscafe.com/Math/Geometry_Worksheets.php

The Geometry Junkyard - just like it says, it’s a dump of miscellaneous resources, clips, ideas, worksheets, etc for teachers:  http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/junkyard/

Internet 4 Classrooms – I’ll let you do the digging, this is a great site for any parent or teacher that’s involved with their child’s learning.  http://www.internet4classrooms.com/

If you know of more to add, please leave it in the comments. Thanks!