Thanksgiving Spirit

Even though I am far way from all of my family and friends for this Thanksgiving, I am still trying to make the best of it. Today I started making some decorations for our piso, just like I did for Halloween. I am also in the middle of making pumpkin muffins, just like I do every Thanksgiving at home. I think it will be a bit hard to be away, since it is the first Thanksgiving that I will spend away from my family and I am SO far away. They said they are going to Skype me in during Thanksgiving dinner so that I can be a part of it, but it won't be the same.
My roommates and I are going to cook a Thanksgiving dinner here in our apartment. The only thing that will be a little different is that we will probably not have turkey. They don't really sell whole turkeys or even turkey breast anywhere here. So, we are either going to get a cooked full chicken from a place around the corner, or we are just going to cook some chicken breasts. I am going to make homemade stuffing, gravy, and sweet potato casserole (with marshmellows of course!) Bridget is going to make a green bean casserole and we are also going to have a salad and some wine. It should be a great meal. We aren't going to have it until Friday though since we all have to work on Thursday.

This week at school I am going to be teaching about Thanksgiving in 5 of my 7 classes. In 1st and 2nd grade, I am teaching them song that goes to the tune of "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" The first verse is "The Pilgrims came to America, America, America, The Pilgrims came to America a long, long time ago." Then there are verses about the Mayflower, Indians, corn and a feast. I think it will sum up Thanksgiving for them pretty well. Then I am going to have them make a handprint turkey as a fun craft. In 6th grade I am going to read them a story about the first thanksgiving. After that, I am going to make a turkey to put up on the wall, then each student is going to get a feather. On that feather they are going to write "I am thankful for...." and they are going to paste the feathers up on the turkey. I think this activity will go really well and they will really like it.