Evelyn Smith
Masters in Library Science, University of North Texas, 2012
A How-to List for Celebrating the Season!
Fall Crafts
Fall
crafts for kids. (2013). All Kids Network.
Retrieved from http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/fall/
Links
take Web surfers to various crafts that kindergarteners and first-graders can
easily complete. Fall leaf scrapbooks and the “What’s inside the pumpkin” can
be used to emphasize introductory science ideas while tissue paper leaf sun
catchers can be adapted to match the skills of older students.
Festive
fall crafts. (2013). Spoonful. Retrieved
from http://spoonful.com/autumn/best-fall-crafts-gallery
Web page
gives links to 37 how-to projects, including tree sculptures, leaf mobiles,
acorn necklaces, a family survey placemat that can also list “what we are
thankful for”, waxed leaves centerpieces, pomades, leaf imprinted coasters,
pierced sun catchers, pilgrim hats, fall-themed batik banners, fall napkin
rings, corn husk dolls, and turkey luminaries.
Halloween Crafts and Decorating Ideas
Fall crafts.
(n. d.). Pinterest. Retrieved from http://www.pinterest.com/af1mom/fall-crafts/
Web site
offers lots of pumpkin carving and Halloween decorating ideas as well as 101
“Festive Fall” tutorials.
Halloween
crafts. (2013). Spoonful. Retrieved from http://spoonful.com/halloween/halloween-crafts
Website
illustrates Halloween decorations, front door décor, party decorations, crafts
for kids, yard decorations, pumpkin carving ideas, and pumpkin crafts.
Halloween
crafts for kids. (2013). Better Homes and Gardens. Retrieved from http://www.bhg.com/halloween/indoor-decorating/easy-halloween-decorations/
Among
the craft ideas proposed for Halloween, making Halloween-template book covers
is a terrific idea for a mid-semester art class project. Accordingly, the McGinley Public Library has
posted the following free-clip-art Web links:
Halloween
clipart and graphics. (20103, September
10). Retrieved from http://www.hellasmultimedia.com/webimages/halloween/halloween_images.htm
Web site
includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, autumn, and Christmas clip art links.
Halloween
Clip Art. (2013). Blogspot.com.
Retrieved from http://free-halloween-clipart.blogspot.com/
This
Blogspot compendium of Halloween clip art presents lots of wicked good ideas
for Halloween decorating.
Stewart,
Martha. (2013). Halloween-ghost-decorations.
Martha Stewart Living. Omnimedia.
Retrieved from http://www.marthastewart.com/860724/halloween-ghost-decorations/@center/276965/halloween
Martha
Stewart’s October Online issue compiles all things Halloween: pumpkin templates, Halloween makeup, homemade
and no-sew costumes, indoor and outdoor Halloween décor, kids’ crafts, treats,
Halloween clip art, table decorations and lots and lots of recipes for
Halloween treats.
Not Your Grandmother’s
Jack-O-Lantern
Funny
face pumpkin ideas. (2013). Spoonful. Retrieved from
Slide
show illustrates faces glued on pumpkins, faces made from household objects,
and vegetables attaches to pumpkins to form a jack-o-lantern face as well as
traditionally carved pumpkins (and patterns for cutting them), so a kindergarten
or elementary school class can make a jack lantern without anyone wielding a
carving knife.
How to
make a jack o’ lantern with kids. (2013). eHow.
Demand Media, Inc. http://www.ehow.com/how_2362291_make-jack-o-lantern-kids.html
eHow
gives a step-by-step guide to carving a jack-o-lantern.
Smith,
Taylor. (2013, October 2). Pumpkin carving art a step up from jack-o-lanterns
for carver Denise Alvarez. Oregon
Live. The Oregonian. Retrieved
from http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2013/10/pumpkin_carving_art_a_step_up.html
Alvarez
uses X-acto and paring knives to create relief-style carvings whereupon she
shades raised areas with a black permanent marker. The smaller tool allows her to have better
control over her design. Finally, to
prolong the “shelf-life”—or rather porch life—of a jack-o-lantern, she sprays
it with bleach.
Trunk or Treat
Some churches, such as Central Presbyterian in Waco,
Texas, host an annual trunk or treat event on their church parking lot since it is a safe place for neighborhood children to trick or treat the
week of Halloween. Meanwhile, the church
members have a lot of fun socializing with each other while participating in a mission activity.
Native American-Themed Art Projects & Activities
Brummer,
Loraine. (2013). Indian crafts to make. Squido.
Retrieved from http://crafting.squidoo.com/native-american-indian-crafts
Art
projects include corn husk dolls, head bands, peace pipes, medicine bags,
Kachina dolls, woven (construction-paper) baskets, grocery bag papooses, totem
poles, rain sticks, dream catchers, sand art, and beaded corn necklaces, and
beaded bracelets.
Gibson,
Karen Bush. (2010). Native American
History for Kids with 21 Activities. For Kids Series. Chicago: Chicago Review Press.
Gibson
outlines the history of North America’s indigenous nations, organized by region,
providing a list of Web pages to explore the topic further and giving a short description of traditional
Native American activities, including making pictographs, fashioning tools,
weaving, telling a story, creating a totem pole, and making fry bread.
Native
American crafts for kids. (2010). Enchanted Learning.com. Retrieved from
Children
can fashion dream catchers, rain sticks, and paper bag canoes.
Native
American sand painting. (2010). Free-kids
Crafts.com. Making Friends.com,
Inc. Retrieved from http://www.freekidscrafts.com/native_american_sand_painting-e77.html
Native-American
sand painting designs can serve as art projects at the secondary level and in
the primary grades.
Inspiring Indian Crafts: Native American Art Books
Appleton,
LeRoy H. (1971). American Indian Design
and Decoration. Dover Pictorial
Archive. Mineola, New York: Dover.
Selected
from the collections of numerous museums, including the American Museum of
Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the 700 drawings found in
this work showcase woven basket designs, sculpture, sand painting, and metal
work, providing authentic inspiration for art projects, although some drawings
may be difficult to make out clearly. An accompanying text provides the context
for the creation of these objects of art.
Berlo,
Janet Catherine and Phillips, Ruth.
(1998). Native North American Art. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Berlo
and Phillips place Native American art in its proper context—the clan, the
community, and the cosmos. Creating art helped with vision quests, celebrated
and advertised power and status, and adorned its wearer. The authors then group the art by regions: Southwest,
East, and West, including the Great Plains, Intermountain West, California and
the Great Basin, North, and Northwest.
Finally, they put contemporary Native American art into its historical
context.
Native American &
Pilgrim Cookery
Indian
fry bread. (2013). Food Network. Recipes
and Cooking. Retrieved from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/indian-fry-bread-recipe/index.html
Food
Network presents this variation on a favorite Native American recipe.
Most popular
Native American kid friendly recipes. (2013). Food.com. Retrieved from http://www.food.com/recipes/native-american-kid-friendly
This
recipe collection includes recipes for fried bread and homesteader cornbread.
Recipes.
(2013). Plimouth Plantation. Retrieved
from http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/recipes
Be
thankful that skunk, a Native American delicacy, didn’t survive as an item on
today’s Thanksgiving menu. However,
families, youth groups, and classes might enjoy serving up these authentic
Wampanoag and Pilgrim recipes. Then
again, they might be thankful for turkey and dressing!
Early American & Thanksgiving Activities for Kids
Armstrong,
Olivia and Wilson, Samantha. (2012, November 6). 18 easy Thanksgiving crafts for kids—gobble,
gobble. Retrieved from
Crafters
can make thankful turkeys, thanksgiving hand trees, fall leaves turkeys, hands
and feet turkeys, and gratitude wreaths.
Shelby,
Barbara. (2012). Colonial themes for kids.
Kids Activities. Retrieved from
Shelby
suggests the following historically-themed activities: Keeping a journal like Noah Webster’s, playing
traditional games that girls and boys enjoyed during the 17th and 18th-centuries,
including tag, jump rope, hopscotch, and leap frog, and making silhouettes, or
shadow pictures, and cooking Johnny cakes and hobnob and applejack cookies.
Talk
like a Pilgrim. (2013). Plimouth Plantation.
Smithsonian Institute Affiliation Program. http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/talk-pilgrim
Webpage lists phrases used by the Pilgrims that
contemporary children will enjoy using in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
First Thanksgiving Hosts & Guests
Web Pages about the Pilgrims & Indians for Children:
Children
on the Mayflower. (2013). General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Retrieved
from https://www.themayflowersociety.com/about-the-pilgrims20/children-on-the-mayflower
A list
of children aboard the Mayflower emphasizes that the settlement of the Plymouth
Colony was very much a family activity.
Donovan,
Ruth Godfrey. Children on the
Mayflower. Surewest Net. Retrieved from http://home.surewest.net/moseley/childmay.html
Story
gives some background history for the thirty children aboard the Mayflower.
Girls
on the Mayflower. (2013). Caleb Johnson’s Mayflower History. Retrieved from http://mayflowerhistory.com/girls
Many of
the Pilgrim parents thought that their daughters were too fragile to withstand the
rigors of both a North Atlantic voyage and building a colony in the wilderness,
so they left them back home in Europe.
Even so, eleven girls, age 1 to 17 made the voyage and proved to be the
strongest demographic to survive the first winter in the New World. The oldest
girl on the Mayflower, Priscilla Mullin, is probably the most famous. Those
girls who survived to adulthood became the grandmothers of many famous
Americans, including John Adams, Franklin Roosevelt, George Bush, Joseph Smith,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wordsworth Longfellow.
Wampanoag
Indian Fact Sheet; (2013). Native
American Facts for Kids. Retrieved from http://www.bigorrin.org/wampanoag_kids.htm
Question
and Answer format teaches elementary-school age children about the daily life
of the Wampanoag tribe.
Nonfiction Children’s Books on the Pilgrims:
Goodman, Susan E. (2001). Pilgrims of Plymouth. Des Moines, Iowa: National Geographic Children’s Books.
Photographs
taken at the Plimouth Living History Museum introduce pupils in grades three to
six to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.
McGovern,
Ann and DiVito, Anna. (1969). If You Sailed on the Mayflower. Reprint
1991. Scholastic: New York.
McGovern
answers a series of question about the Pilgrims that pupils in kindergarten
through grade 3 will easily understand, although it may play down the Indians
part in the founding of Plymouth Plantation.
------. (1973). Freem, Elroy, Illustrator. (Reprint 1993). The Pilgrim’s First Thanksgiving. New York: Scholastic.
This
picture book for children five to eight retells the story of their journey aboard
the Mayflower and their daily life in the New World.
Metaxas,
Eric. (1999). Squanto and the Miracle of
Thanksgiving. Stirnwells, Shannon,
Illustrator. Reprint 2012. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Metaxas
starts his tale about Thanksgiving when Spanish sailors kidnap a 12-year-old
Indian boy name Squanto from his native village, taking him to Spain. Eventually handed over to a London merchant, Squanto
learns to speak English and then makes his way back home in time to help the
struggling English colony. Thus, a providential God turns Squanto trials into a
blessing.
Osborne,
Mary Pope and Boyce, Natalie Pope.
(2005). Murdocca, Sal, Illustrator.
Pilgrims. Magic Tree House Fact Checker. New York:
Random House Books for Young Readers.
Lots of
terrific illustrations help young readers in grades 1 to 4 better understand
the story of the Pilgrims.
Philbrook,
Nathaniel. (2009). The Mayflower and the
Pilgrims’ New World. New York: Puffin.
Abridged
and adapted from The Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and
Courage (2007), this well-researched book aimed at middle school students busts
a few myths; for example, the English Separatists landed at Cape Cod not
Plymouth Rock before moving on to the shores of Plymouth Bay. However, Philbrook bases his book on a
primary source—William Bradford’s Of
Plimouth Plantation. Not only does
he cover the Pilgrims’ voyage aboard the Mayflower and their wretched first
year in North America, but he also extends the Pilgrims’ story to cover their
first 50 years in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ending with King Philip’s War.
Plimouth
Plantation, Arenstam, Peter, et al. (2007 Reprint). Mayflower 1620. Des Moines, Iowa: National Geographic Society.
Photographs
taken during a reenactment of the Mayflower’s voyage in June 2001 help tell a
P.C. version of the Pilgrim’s journey in 1620 and their first year in Plymouth.
Waters,
Kate. (1996). A Day in the Life of a
Pilgrim Boy. Kendall, Russ,
Illustrator. New York: Scholastic.
A
photographer at Plimouth Plantations re-enacts a summer’s day in the life of
Samuel Eaton, a seven-year-old boy who lived in Plymouth in 1627.
Children’s Books about New England Indians:
Flanagan,
Alice K. (1997). The Wampanoags. True Books: American Indians. New York: Children’s Books.
Flanagan
tells the story of the tribe who met the boat in an easy-to-read text coupled
with photographs taken at the Plimouth Plantation and historical prints.
Wilbur,
Keith C. (1997). The New England Indians.
Illustrated Living History. New
York: Chelsea House Publications.
Text
and illustrations detail the daily lives of the 18 major tribes who lived in
pre-colonial New England from the Paleolithic Age to their early years of
contact with Europeans.
Pilgrims vs. Indians Videos:
Plimouth
Plantation has produced three Thanksgiving virtual films that document the
daily life of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians:
Thanksgiving
virtual field trips. (2012). Plimouth
Plantation. Retrieved from
The information
provided by a round table—or rather around the campfire—discussion that includes
both Pilgrim and Indian actors, in turn, can be broken down into two virtual
field trips—one for the settlers--Plimouth
Plantation (18:34 minutes) and one for the Native Americans--A Tour of a Wampanoag Homestead (17:24
minutes), taking audiences into a thatched, clapboard cottage and a wetu, a round oval house of the Indians.
Virtual
Field Trip. Plimouth Plantation. (2012, November 16)). Scholastic Channel. (30:24
minutes). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5qi3Meqy24
This
short clip poses five questions answered by a virtual field trip Pilgrim
housewife:
5 Questions with a Pilgrim: Goodwife Hopkins
from Plimouth Plantation. (n. d.). The
Scholastic Channel. (2:13 minutes). Retrieved from
Mayflower: The Pilgrim’s Adventure. (1979). Retrieved
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rxJoFtA6IA
This
made for TV Thanksgiving special aired in 1979 and starred Anthony Hopkins,
Richard Crenna and Jenny Agutter.
Plymouth: The Story of Us. (2011m July
29). (8:44 minutes). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoXHXbgRJvc
According
to this video, more than 10 percent of all Americans can trace their ancestry
back to the Mayflower. Going beyond the traditional
Thanksgiving story, however, this film stresses that even though the Pilgrims
endured much hardship their first year in the New World, a plague that had
wiped out most of the Native population simplified the settlers relations with
the Indians they encountered, who were simply too weak to offer any kind of resistance. The English settlers also had the luck to
arrive during the midst of a war between during tribes.
High
school and middle school students might benefit from watching the following
films particularly if they discuss how events might have actually unfolded somewhere
between the two points-of-view:
Plymouth Colony: The Pilgrims. (1955) Encyclopaedia
Britannica. (21.21 minutes; black and white film). Retrieved form http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYNTtJbsRMk
This
film dramatizes the traditional telling of Pilgrim’s journey to the New World
and their first year there.
The Truth about Thanksgiving. (2010). Time River
Productions. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRI1BIaER4
This
politically correct version of Thanksgiving gives the Native American’s
viewpoint.
Make
it @ your library. (n. d.). American
Library Association. Retrieved from http://makeitatyourlibrary.org/sites/default/files/logo_1.png
Browse
these do-it-yourself projects courtesy of the ALA.
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