Thanksgiving Around the World Inquiry Unit

Thanksgiving Around the World Inquiry Unit

Hey, y'all! Every winter we teach our Holidays Around the World unit and every fall we teach about Thanksgiving. But we often overlook the fact that other countries have a Thanksgiving or harvest festival like we do in the US. This year, we're going to be exploring the different harvest or Thanksgiving celebrations that take place in other countries. 

We start off the unit by defining our essential questions. We do a QFT to get our brains thinking, then we write out what we're wondering or what we want to focus our inquiry on. 

After that, we look through our Thanksgiving words and do some research to define them and get us focused on our new unit. 

Next comes the research. Did you know there are over 15 other countries in the world that have some kind of Thanksgiving celebration? It's true. And I've included a list in the lesson planning pages to get you started. 

Students explore the different countries or regions and take note of the different traditions, foods, history, and more. Some of these celebrations are absolutely fascinating and your students will remember some of these random facts forever. 

This unit also includes maps for tracking where these countries are and the food they eat there for their celebrations. There are also writing pages, pages to calculate the costs of a full dinner and to find out how many people in the world celebrate Thanksgiving, a timeline, a Venn diagram, and more!

There are so many ways you can direct this unit and you can make it as short or as long as you need it. Depending on the time you have for social studies, you could make this unit last the entire month of November. And it could easily be used during your reading block while you teach about nonfiction texts, research, or main ideas. 

You can find out more about this unit in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here. Be sure to follow me on TPT so you don't miss any new resources, ideas, or freebies. 

I hope this unit helps make your Thanksgiving unit one students will love and remember. Have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon. 

Stay cozy,