She's Crafty

Thanksgiving Reenactment and Indian Corn Craft

We spent some time yesterday afternoon reenacting the Thanksgiving story after reading these fun books.

It’s Thanksgiving and four adorable mice are putting on a play for their woodland friends. The play is of course the story of Thanksgiving. This is a GREAT book for Preschooler's to easily understand the story of Thanksgiving. My first grader even enjoyed it.

Ten little Pilgrims and ten little Wampanoag boys and girls are getting ready for the harvest feast. After gathering all the food, everyone gives thanks, and then it's time to eat and celebrate. The simple, rhythmic text is great for sharing the history and fun of Thanksgiving with young children.

After reading our stories my pilgrims set out to sea on their long journey on the Mayflower...(I know you are all loving how I wrote Mayflower on the cardboard, hahaha!)


They got so hungry they even tried catching a small fish with their telescopes.


Finally they spot land far off in the distance...


After reaching land and starting to settle in they meet the cutest little Indians you ever did see...


The Pilgrims made friends with the Indians and the Indians showed the pilgrims how to plant corn and other seeds...


And after the garden had grown and was ready to harvest, they had a huge feast and gave thanks to God for all their blessings! I meant to pop popcorn with the kids to eat but the night got away from us. But we did make this adorable Indian Corn craft.


I cut out a corn cob shape out of yellow card stock paper and we used a pencil eraser to press on the corn kernels all over the cob. We made sure to use fall colored paint. The boys LOVED using the pencil eraser to paint with. Heck, even I did!  :)


I cut out some corn husks from leftover scraps from our paper bag Indian vests. We crumbled them up and then straightened them out to give them some texture and glued them to the back of our corn. Andy was such a perfectionist and made sure his kernels were all close together so it looked "real" (as he said).


Next I lifted up the corn a little at the end, punched a hole in it with a hole punch, strung some raffia through it and made a bow. The raffia could act as a way to hang up the corn, or I just personally think it looks pretty. I got the idea for this craft at Spotted Canary.