Cranberry Thanksgiving {FI♥AR}


November 14th - 15th & 21st - 25th

Social Studies: Family Traditions; Geography ~ New England; History ~ Thanksgiving

In Cranberry Thanksgiving, Grandmother's cranberry bread is known for miles around. She keeps her secret recipe "carefully hid" behind a brick in the fire place. "It was so famous that bakers all over the countryside had offered great sums of money for the recipe." Grandmother "scoffed at the idea, but she still thought it was something special to leave Maggie."

I've been thinking about this a lot, and hope to have some special recipes to leave my daughter (or granddaughter) someday.  So I opened this Recipe Traditions binder with the hopes of creating some special recipes of our own as a keepsake to pass on to Eliana.



Grandmother and Maggie lived "at the edge of a cranberry bog in New England" so we found the New England states on a map. 

For history, we read about the history of the first American thanksgiving and watched America: The Story of US ~ Episode 1: Rebels (from Jamestown to Plymouth) on Netflix  (Malachi watched all the way to Episode 5: The Civil War, on his own).

My favorite go-along book for Cranberry Thanksgiving is A Pioneer Thanksgiving.   It is a dramatic story that follows the Robertson family as they prepare for Thanksgiving in the year 1841. It includes information about the pioneer period and how Thanksgiving was celebrated in the past.  It also has hands on activities such as making a corn dolly or learning to play conkers. 

We played a "Sail on the Mayflower" game. 


Eliana pasted together a Mayflower ship.

And we completed a history theme pocket from Evan Moor on The First Thanksgiving.

Pocket #1



We used the 3 Rules poster from We Choose Virtues for our Class Compact:


I love the idea of this poster.
"Every classroom or home instruction you already use can find its place under one of these three rules. They are based on the three most important Virtues that a young student needs to know. All 12 Virtues fall under these categories as well!"
My boys are always asking me what they can do to turn their negative behavior around and I respond with these three rules. =) 

What Will You Take?

Eliana's list: "food, dolly, wool to make a coat, books to read, and a flashlight." =) 


Pocket #2

The front side of each page includes information about the pilgrims during their first year in America, including housing, clothing, jobs and chores, and transportation. . .and the back of each page is a drawing of all these things in Malachi's life. If anything in our life resembled the pilgrims, he drew that. For example, pilgrims had to mend their clothes instead of making more right away, so Malachi drew me sewing clothes (although I buy most of his clothes). He wouldn't budge and draw us shopping for clothes. =)

Pocket #3

I used this spot to have Malachi narrate what he had learned and then he drew an illustration (instead of writing facts on turkey feathers). 



And we made a Thanksgiving placemat that compared the first Thanksgiving feast in America to our Thanksgiving dinner today. 



We also discussed the moral theme of the story  ~ not judging someone by their appearance (or smell).

Language Arts: Aliteration, Consonance, Onomatopoeia

While we were cooking our cranberry sauce, I reviewed onomatopoeia with Malachi. We tried to think of some Thanksgiving onomatopoeia and we came up with gobble, gobble and a few others. Well, the cranberry recipe said to cook the cranberries until they "pop" so that tied in nicely with our lesson. The sauce had to be stirred for 10 minutes, so I covered alliteration and consonance with him while waiting, as well. We tried to do a cranberry alliteration and came up with something silly like "cranberries crying in the crock, cooking in the kitchen. . ." (something like that). This is how I imagine Five in a Row was meant to be taught and . . . I enjoyed it very much. We do this often, but I fight the temptation to pull out a lapbook piece (I had them printed, cut and ready to go!) because I love having our lap journals to look back on. But, really Five in a Row is very easy to implement if you do it this way!

Science: Leavening/Chemical Reactions - Baking Soda Bombs, Cranberry Science

Vinegar and baking soda reaction to blow up and "pop" the bag. 

We watched How It's Made ~ Cranberries (Season 2, Episode 1 on Netflix). (I've seen the same video on YouTube.)

Math: Measuring Skills, Popcorn Estimation and Counting

We reviewed measuring dry weights using cranberries and liquid measuring using the orange juice in the cranberry bread (below).

The Pilgrims learned how to make popcorn from the first native Americans, so we did a Popcorn Estimation activity.

Popcorn Estimation

Malachi did not want to count all the popcorn kernels. So, I divided them in half and then helped him by making piles of five (hoping he would count by 5's). Well, he put two piles together and counted by 10. He was only 3 off! (His 9's are backwards).

I made a special "corn" treat, since the pilgrims grew corn.



FIAR Recipe: Cranberry Potpourri, "Cranberry Bog" Bread

The potpourri made the house smell so good. I only used a half an orange (ate the other half), but it still smelled wonderful! I stuck in the fridge and used it again the next day.

Cranberries, whole orange, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and nutmeg.
Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread is in the back of the book, but would you believe I couldn't find the book when we went to make the cranberry bread?! I used Pamela's recipe, but instead of using golden raisins, I added milk chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Hence, we named it "Cranberry Bog" bread. The Five in a Row Cookbook suggests you give a special name to the recipes you make, so since Grandmother and Maggie live on the edge of a cranberry bog, we thought that would be a good name. 

We made bread and muffins. I took Pamela's advice to put the cranberries at the bottom of the mix (instead of stirring them in) - so glad I did. This keeps all the cranberries from floating to the top. For the bread, we put some on the bottom on and folded some in. 

I had Eliana use Easy Grip Tweezers to transfer the cranberries to each muffin cup for a practical life skill (they are kind of hard to squeeze). 

She also wanted to add the batter to each cup. I gave her a second spoon to push the batter off the first spoon (she didn't want to use her finger like I do, lol). I was so proud of her for being diligent to fill all of the muffin cups by herself.  Malachi wanted to help too, so I had him put the cranberries in the bread pans and help me scoop the batter in. 

Cranberry Bread ~ with cranberries, milk chocolate chips and pecans

The bread was so good! I love how the tart of the cranberry meets the sweet milk chocolate, the undertone of orange was perfect and the pecans give it a nutty flavor and texture. 

We also made two types of cranberry sauce - a fresh relish and a cooked sauce. 

Fresh Cranberry Relish:
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 whole orange, the ends cut off
1 cup sugar
Elli made the fresh cranberry relish (I remember first making this in the 4th grade during a Brownie meeting) and Mali made the cooked cranberry sauce. We served them both with our dinner. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner! I made an herb and citrus turkey that was the best turkey I've ever made.  You can see a peak into our home during our first week of this row here (including a road trip to Montana and a shopping trip to Costco), and our Thanksgiving week here (including a link to the Herb and Citrus Turkey recipe that I used!). 

"Thanksgiving" Memory Making

We have our Thanksgiving dinner for our Erev Shabbat meal (on Friday evening), so on Thanksgiving day I made a special "turkey dinner." 


Cranberry Popcorn Trail Mix

Popcorn Turkey!

Apple Turkey Sandwich






Art: Silhouettes


I was determined to find an easy way to do this, and I love how it came out . . .


To make the silhouette, I first took a portrait photo of Eliana from the side. Then, I made it black and white (to save on ink) then printed it onto printer paper.  I used a little rubber cement (because it peels off easily) and glued it to a piece of black card-stock. Then, I cut it out and then peeled off the photo and mounted it on white card-stock. (The hardest part was trying to decide which photo to use!)

Cranberry Thanksgiving is a Five in a Row selection from Volume 1.

Delightful Links:

CT Resources @ HSS