The Pilgrims' ship, the Mayflower was desperately overcrowded as the ship had to take on the passengers from the Speedwell when it proved not seaworthy. The Pilgrims had to take everything needed to set up a new colony as there would be no stores nearby. So each family could only take a limited amount of personal possessions and had to make some hard choices. Give students a medium size box and explain that is all the room they have to pack for the entire family. Display a selection of items that a family may consider taking -- clothes, shoes, medicine, toys, family heirlooms, dishes and silverware, books and so on. Challenge students to make selections and pack the boxes. Discuss the consequences, good and bad, of the choices in terms of the effect have having a certain item along or not.
The Pilgrim diet was limited to what they could make with the supplies they had on hand which was whatever they could grow, raise or hunt for the most part because most of their food supplies were used up on the sea journey and what wasn't consumed spoiled quickly. Mix up a batch of some real Pilgrim recipes from Plymouth Plantation such as curd fritters, stewed pumpkin or samp, a type of corn bread. Talk about what kind of food the Pilgrims actually had available at the first Thanksgiving as opposed to modern notions of a sumptuous turkey feast.
Pilgrim children had to work hard to help families with little time to play and enjoy childhood. But when they did get a long-awaited break in the work cycle, fox and geese was a popular game for exercising wit and strategy. Make a cross-shaped game board and divide it into five equal squares. Draw an "X" along the diagonals from corner to corner in each box and run a horizontal and vertical line through the center from top to bottom and side to side. Place a fox marker in the center and 15 geese markers on the lines around the bottom and sides of the board. Fox can move in any direction but the geese can only move forward or sideways. The fox captures a goose by jumping over it onto an open space. He cannot land on another goose. The geese try to corner the fox by boxing him in with nowhere to jump. Each player moves her pieces along the lines one space at a time on her turn. The game ends when the fox is cornered or there are not enough geese left to surround the fox.
Make paper bag Pilgrim puppets and act out the story of the Mayflower's crossing, landing, the struggles to survive, meeting and learning from the Wampanoag Indians and the celebration of the first harvest for those that did survive. DLTK Holidays offers many other paper crafts to help children remember to follow the Pilgrims example in thanking God for their blessings in spite of their struggles.
Music and poetry are fun ways to supplement the Pilgrims' story with creative expression. Look for Thanksgiving songs in a holiday songbook or ask a music teacher for suggestions. Check Thanksgving poetry books out of the library to read to your class and recite together. The Preschool Education and Child Fun websites provide some Thanksgiving songs and poems as well.