A cornucopia, also called a horn of plenty, represents the bounty of the harvest. The Indians helped the Pilgrims learn to survive in America after their first horrible winter anchored off the coast. The students can create a horn of plenty using pictures of the foods the Pilgrims learned to cultivate and find before they celebrated the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth.
Print the cornucopia coloring page and allow the students to color the Pilgrim and cornucopia. Have them use glue sticks to add pictures of pumpkins, gourds, corn and other fall crops to the picture. They can also add pictures of fish, deer and turkeys around the horn as meats the Pilgrims learned to hunt.
Read the children a book like "Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims" or "Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving." Discuss how Squanto worked with the Pilgrim survivors to teach them to plant corn, harvest maple sugar and fish in the streams. Have the children mimic using a stick to poke a hole in the ground and add the fish and grains of corn to grow their own food.
The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower in 1620. Give the children a picture of the Mayflower to color. While they color, you can read them "Pilgrim Children on the Mayflower" or a similar story about how the Pilgrims traveled to Plymouth and the hardships they suffered.
Print out the pattern of a paper basket and let the children color the basket as you read or tell them a story about the Pilgrims and their Indian friends. Help the children assemble their baskets. Collect the jerky, crackers, chocolate balls, pretzels, goldfish, marshmallows, candies and dried fruit for the basket. Have the children place their baskets on the table near the basket supplies. Talk about what each item represents as they add the items one at a time to the baskets.
Review the story of the Pilgrims and Indians at Plymouth. Have the children think of things the Pilgrims might have been thankful for at that first feast. Remind them that it is still important to remember things to be thankful for. Ask them to name things they are thankful for.