It’s November already! Halloween is over (boo-hoo!), and it’s time to think about Thanksgiving-themed lessons in early literacy.

I love teaching gratitude—the state of mind that can turn around a sour mood or disappointed mindset. And I especially love introducing or reinforcing the idea of thankfulness to children, who are at the beginning of their lives.

By teaching youngsters to be thankful we can help them to develop a habit of gratitude and to learn to be thoughtful of others. The freebies below are simple yet effective ways to help young students learn to put themselves in another person’s shoes, and to be thankful to other people.

My favorite Thanksgiving resource is Thanksgiving Day Opinion Paragraph Lesson Plan for grades 1 and 2. This comprehensive PDF includes absolutely everything you need for a 5-day writing process lesson plan, and MORE!

• fact vs. opinion worksheet
• four leveled 2-page graphic organizers
• sample paragraphs and revisions, leveled
• paragraph writing student checklists, leveled
• Thanksgiving writing paper
• pocket chart sentence strips
• writing rubric
• bar graph poster (for graphing opinions)
• lots of teaching suggestions

The elements in this writing kit provide you with a great way to teach kids the different parts of a paragraph, while giving them an outlet to express their opinion about Thanksgiving Day. And you know kids! They love expressing their opinions!

Happy Gratitude Month!

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Note #1: Make sure you don’t have any students for whom this would be an upsetting topic.

Note #2: This writing activity is one of a series of writing activities geared to 1^st and 2^nd graders:

• Halloween Writing | Costume Description
• Thanksgiving Writing | Opinion Paragraph
• Christmas Writing | Thoughtful Letter to Santa
• Christmas Hanukkah Writing | Thank You Note