We Are Thankful . . .Every Day, and Thanksgiving Day

      What do we know about Thanksgiving?   We know that we are thankful, and we say this every day in our Tefillah.  We also know our American history . . . and that the Thanksgiving  holiday celebrates the first Thanksgiving so long ago.

Spontaneously reenacting the First Thanksgiving on our playground.  Morah Sterny asks, "Boys, where are you going?"  Rami has his hands on the wheel while Yoni responds, "We're going to America!"

We are Thankful for . . .
We made a list of everything we are thankful for. . . 

Rami:  my house.

Shaya:  hugs with my brothers.

Reed:  my sister Ansley, and brushing her teeth.

Ruthie:  Mommy.

Yoni:  my kitty-cat.

Noa:  my neighbor's dog.

Pearl:  my parents.

Mortimer:  my Lego set.

Izzy:  Mommy and Daddy.

Ari S:  Ima and G'ma, Safta, Amber, Amanda, Lev (he's almost big!) and Aba!

Hannah:  Aba.

Ari E:  the hugs I give to Ziva and Albee.

Leiba:  a trip to Disney World.

Shlomit:  Mickey Mouse.

Sam:  food on the table.

Levi:  the food in my house

Henia:  my Aba and my Ima and my kitty. 

     We shared a few stories about Thanksgiving.  One of our favorites was about Squanto, the American Native who taught the Pilgrims how to plant and fish.

 

We are watching our variegated corn cob experiment.  What will happen next?  We will wait . . . 

    









     We learned about the importance of corn to the American Natives.  We tried our hand at baking corn bread.  The result was tasty!

Our delicious, nutritious yummy-in-the-tummy recipe for corn bread: 

1/4 cup corn meal
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease 8 or 9 inch round pan.  Blend all dry ingredients, stir in remaining ingredients.  Pour batter into greased pan and bake 20 to 25 minutes.  And if you're expecting 100 guests for company, as we did for our recent IJP Thanksgiving lunch, simply multiply the above ingredients by 10, and you're ready to go:)

     We also tried writing and drawing with a feather quill.  Did people in the "old days" have iPads?  Definitely not. We dipped our quills in black paint and went to work.  Morah Susan told us that the Pilgrims squeezed berries and used that as their "ink."  To demonstrate, she squeezed a cranberry to show us the juice.  It was very juicy and red; it squished on her shirt, so we know it is a lot like ink!  (Pictures below:  writing and drawing with our quills and "ink.")

     

(Above, We take turns sweeping our floor with an old-timey broom.  A Pilgrim's work is never done!)

Some of us practiced building houses using our wooden logs.  It wasn't all that easy.  Imagine the life of a Pilgrim!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love, Morah Susan, Morah Sterny and Kitah Gimmel