Preparing for Thanksgiving

I vowed last year that I would be better about preparing for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July are the only two truly American holidays, and they are a valuable part of our children’s cultural heritage. My son likes July Fourth because of all the explosions and smoke. I prefer Thanksgiving!

So…how to prepare for Thanksgiving? This year, my goal is for the children to begin to understand who the Pilgrims were and why they left England for Holland, and why they left Holland for the New World. I especially want them to understand the persecution and debauchary faced in those countries so that they can then understand what sort of society the Pilgrims aimed to build here in the Americas.

My resource this year is free online. I don’t prefer reading books to the children from the blue screen, but this is definitely an inexpensive way to access a wonderful old book, beautifully written, that accurately details the history of the Pilgrims.

Try it now. Margaret Pumphrey’s Pilgrim Stories is online, courtesy of Google Books. Of course, if you want to hold a real book in your hands, you can also buy Pilgrim Stories online.