The Best Thanksgiving Q&A for Kids!

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Thanksgiving is one of the most beloved American holidays: It’s a time to be with family, enjoy a good meal, and reflect on what you’re grateful for! It’s also a great opportunity for teachable moments and learning opportunities. Use these read-aloud Q&As with your young kids to learn all about history, being grateful, giving back, and more!
 

What is Thanksgiving? 

Thanksgiving is a U.S. holiday celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday in November to be thankful for the harvest, when food planted in preparation for winter has been picked and gathered. Most fruits and veggies grow best during spring, summer, and fall. Since very few foods grow in the cold, having enough food to last all winter used to rely on collecting and storing a big batch of fruits and vegetables at the end of autumn. A really big harvest of foods was (and still is!) something to be thankful for, so a celebration was created!

The “first Thanksgiving” is usually thought of as the special meal shared a few hundred years ago (1621) between the Native Americans and their new European neighbors, who’d recently come to Plymouth Rock. The Native Americans had helped the European “Pilgrims” learn how to successfully plant food in preparation for winter. The Pilgrims’ first winter in America had been difficult, but with a better harvest, that year looked more hopeful and so they celebrated with a Thanksgiving Meal!

Although the holiday has changed greatly since the “first” Thanksgiving, we still celebrate today with a bountiful meal at which we give thanks for all we have!

What was the Mayflower?

The Mayflower is a very famous ship. Hundreds of years ago (in the year 1620) people from England (Pilgrims) sailed to America on the Mayflower to start a new life. It took them sixty-six days to cross the ocean between Europe and America. That’s a very long time! Can you imagine being on a boat in bad weather for over two months, without even knowing what your new country would look like? Because they thought the Americas would be a much better place to live, they bravely took on the journey! They finally landed near what is now Cape Cod in November, just as winter was getting started.

The Pilgrims had a very difficult first winter – it was too cold when they arrived to build proper housing, so they spent that winter living on the ship! They also didn’t know how to farm the land or what to eat. It was because of the help of their Native American neighbors that they were able to be more prepared the next year, which was when they all sat down together for a historical thanksgiving meal!

Why did people settle in North America?

North America has been a home to many different people at many different times. Today’s Native Americans were the first people to come to North America, when their relatives of long, long ago (over 11,000 years!) came here for food.

Then, settlers from Europe (like the Vikings) began to come to the Americas starting about 1,000 years ago, followed a few hundred years later by someone you might have heard of: Christopher Columbus! Columbus famously sailed to North America by accident while trying to get from Spain to Asia. Before Columbus, people in Europe didn’t know the Americas existed, but after he told them about what he’d found, many more explorers began to come from places like France, England, and Spain. They came because they wanted to find new land for their countries, and to start new lives. Some people came because they wanted a place where they could practice whatever religion they believed in, or because they wanted to make a better living. Plus, it was a beautiful place!

Today North America is an interesting and diverse part of our world because so many different groups came together and settled on the land!

Why do we eat Turkey on Thanksgiving?

Turkey and Thanksgiving go hand-in-hand! There’s no single answer to exactly when or why we started eating turkey on Thanksgiving, but it’s a practice Americans have had for a very long time. It’s said that at the “first” Thanksgiving in 1621, some of the colonists went out “fowling,” or hunting for poultry for their feast. While we don’t know for sure that they ate turkey, it’s possible that birds such as wild turkey, goose, or duck were on the menu.

It’s also likely that Turkey became popular because lots of people could afford to buy it. Most people who eat turkey on Thanksgiving today do so because it’s tradition, although it’s likely the tradition came from availability; while other meats were expensive, turkey was both available and tasty! – Yum!

How did pumpkins get their name?

Pumpkin is pretty common on Thanksgiving tables across the U.S. How did this delicious vegetable get its funny name??

The pumpkin was first named by people in Greece. They called this orange edible a “pepon,” which means “large melon.” Can you see how pumpkins might have reminded people of large ribbed melons with orange coloring on the outside or inside? The French then changed the name to “pompon,” and the English made the change to “pumpion.”

So it’s not hard to see how American colonists then called this orange piece of produce “pumpkin,” a name we still enjoy today, especially during the Fall when pumpkins are celebrated, decorated and happily eaten!

What is volunteering?

Thanksgiving is a time when lots of people want to give back to their community. From canned food drives to serving a hot meal at a shelter on Thanksgiving Day, volunteering is a great way of showing thanks!

When someone is a volunteer, it means that person gives his or her time and skills to a service, project, or organization in order to give back to those in need and make their community a better place! Volunteers are not paid and give their time for free simply because it’s a good deed to help others!

The types of volunteering that people can do are endless! You can volunteer to help plant trees, visit the elderly, collect coats for the homeless, pick up trash, weed a vegetable garden, build a playground, and more! People volunteer because it feels good to help out. It also provides great opportunities for learning and can even be lots of fun! Volunteers are needed year-round, but giving your time to help those in need on a holiday is a particularly good deed and can be a very fulfilling way of celebrating!

The above answers were written by Mya Kagan, Brian Griffin, Alli Rodenhauser, and Kate Simmons. For more on these topics and endless others, just browse or search!