Incorporating A Cranberry Thanksgiving Into Your Homeschool

A few years ago, we can across the classic picture book, A Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin.  This charming story introduces us to Maggie and her grandmother preparing for Thanksgiving.  While Maggie and Mr. Whiskers gather firewood, Grandmother creates her famous Cranberry bread... a recipe so famous that she hides it to keep it a secret.  As part of their tradition, Maggie and Grandmother each invite a guest to share their Thanksgiving dinner... Mr. Whiskers and Mr. Horace.  The story is fun, unexpected, and holds an important message: "Don't judge a book by its cover."  Paired with the themes of friendship and hospitality, A Cranberry Thanksgiving has become a family favorite.    

Reading A Cranberry Thanksgiving is a great starting place for even more cranberry unit study activities.  Included in the back of the book is Grandmother's super secret Cranberry Bead recipe.  Apparently it's not a secret any more.  And while pumpkin typically dominates in fall flavors, this cranberry recipe is really quite tasty.  We typically make muffins for Friday morning breakfast, so we've adapted the bread recipe and bake them together after reading the book.  They definitely satisfy the "comfort food" craving.

Baking offers a multitude of learning activities.  Reading a recipe involves  reading comprehension, attention to detail, and sequential thinking.  Math concepts abound with meansuremnets, franctions and even multiplication and division.  Science is part of the process as well making it a full activity.  

While the mufins are baking, it's a great time to talk about plot, setting, and themes.  The book does a great job of contrasting all four major characters and their motivation in the story.  And this simple picture book follows a classic story arc, making it a great example to study.  

Chalk Pastels also offers a lesson on creating Mr. Whiskers from the book.  The lines are simple, and basic for beginners, but the end result is very satisfying.  It really does look like him!  There's also a silhouette lesson for artists who want to take it a step further.

If you have older students and want to take it a step further, here are several other resources we've found:

*Ocean Spray's Cranberries in the Classroom website

*Make a cranberry bog in a cup

*Use cranberries to determine acids and bases

*Create a Cranberry Thanksgiving lap book

*Build a cranberry raft

*and so much more!

What fun activities would you include?