Wampanoags, Families and Veterans Day-What I am Teaching This Week.

Hi friends! Welcome to another fun filled, PACKED week! November is a shorter month and there is just so much that I want to do with my kiddos. We are lucky enough to get the WHOLE week of Thanksgiving off so, I really have to pack each day with as many activites that I can!

This week we are starting our 2 week Thanksgiving Unit. To start off we learn all about the Wampanoags. A few years ago when I discovered TPT I found

Kristen Smith who is also known as A Day In First Grade. She has some amazing units in her store. The Thanksgiving ones she has are AH- MA- ZING!

She uses many real life pictures, tons of vocabulary and lots of activites to go along with this topic. Seriously, there are not enough words to describe how awesome this packet is!

She has put together a great story about how these people lived, dressed, ate and so much more. My students last year LOVED seeing the real life pictures and learned so many new vocabulary words. The best part about this pack is all the interactive notebook parts! There are SO many. Click the cover above to check out this unit! 

Many years ago I got this book from Scholastic

It goes into great detail about a day in this boys life. My students are always amazed to hear and see about how children lived long ago. Next week we even read 2 more books just like this about Pilgrims. Make sure to come back and read about them!

This week we will also be celebrating Veterans Day. There are not very many books that talk about this holiday on a elementary level. I did find this one while searching and I like how it helps teach about this holiday for younger readers

Along with any topic we always have to have some anchor charts to help us with our learning. I found these on Pinterest from Cara over at 

The First Grade Parade

She also has some great freebies you can snag too! I am always looking for more resoures to teach about this holiday so I also created a mini unit that has anchor charts, bubble maps, flip books and more!

Here is a  peek of what is included:

                        Anchor charts that go over each branch of the military

                                      Bubble maps for each branch of the military

                           Sorting activity that comes with colored picture cards

Interactive notebook activites and printables

This year my students love creating flip books. I of course had to make some to go along with Veterans Day!

There are 2 different versions one has pictures and lines for writing. The other book was left blank for students to be able to add what they wanted to each page.

We are also going to be talking about families this week during social studies. We start off by reading these books

 This is a great introduction to family life through animal families. This book shows how every family is different. I then have the kids draw pictures of their families and with a partner the discuss how they families are different and if there is anything the same. They also fill out this venn diagram and share it with the class.

We also read this book that talks about all the different relatives families could have

The kids then get to create a family tree. We display them in the hallways so when the parents come by for conferences they can see them. 

If you would like any of the family printables you can grab them by clicking

HERE

Whew, I am wiped out already from just thinking about all that we are going to do this week! Don't forget to stop by next week to see what we do to learn about Pilgrims, Thanksgiving and our Now and Then unit!

Have a great one everyone!