Susan Berkowitz’s Free Thanksgiving Past & Present Comparisons

There are many stories about the first Thanksgiving, and they are sometimes contradictory about who was there and what was eaten.  

We are told that the feast actually lasted for 3 days.  Can you imagine all the food you eat on that one Thursday going on for 2 more days?  

Many years ago I worked with a man whose family was Italian.  Their feast was always amazing, as he described it, but certainly not what the original settlers ate.

Being able to explain how things are the same, are different, and why is a skill we practice in language intervention.  Being able to see, describe, and explain the critical features of two different objects, actions, or events is a critical language skill.

Here is a simple but effective activity about today’s Thanksgiving “feasts” and the original ‘Thanksgiving’ dinner between the settlers and the Wampanoag Native American tribe.

You can read the brief narrative to the students and/or show them the Venn diagram.  Then have them practice telling one thing about how the meals were the same and different.

You can also have students practice writing sentences or a paragraph.