Recalling the Day of Thanks

Dressed as Pilgrims or Indians, the Memorial Elementary second-graders in Ashley Culverhouse and Nicole Radonski's classes knew who participated in the first Thanksgiving but were a bit unclear about other details.

Their parents visited the classroom Friday to dine on a breakfast feast with their children. The hearty morning meal featured meats and sweets - sausage patties, summer sausage, bacon, casseroles, croissants, muffins and plenty of doughnuts.

A group of students sitting at a table were asked about the nation's day of thanks.

When was the first Thanksgiving?

"Ask another question," one student retorted.

"Last year?" Destiny Archeval said without confidence.

"3,000 years ago," another student said.

What did they eat?

"Wild turkey," Xavier Wilson said.

"Buffalo," a couple of students said.

"They used those things to kill the buffalo," Wilson said.

"Arrows," Wilson's classmate elaborated, to remind him of what was used to kill the buffalo.

"They shaved their skin off to make clothes and houses," Wilson added.

Culverhouse said the students learned about plains Indians recently and how they used buffalo hides to make teepees.

Wearing paper grocery bags with cutouts for their arms, half the students also had paper Indian head-dresses while the other half wore paper Pilgrim hats.

Destiny Archeval was dressed as a Pilgrim.

What is a Pilgrim?

"A Pilgrim - oh help me guys," Archeval exhorted to her classmates.

"A pilgrim is a person that wears kind of stuff like this, and then the pilgrims meet with the Indians and they share food and then they be thankful to one another."

Nikerria Jackson, who said she was not related to Michael Jackson, pointed to her classmate seated to here left and said, "she's a real Indian."

In fact, Jackson's classmate, Jasmine Kainth, is a Native-American, and she was dressed as an Indian/native American for this Thanksgiving feast.

Are you going to school this week?

"Yes," one girl quickly shouted.

"No, oh no!" a few students chimed in with the correct answer because there is no school this week.

Aside from having a Thanksgiving meal with your family, what are you going to do all week, the students were asked.

"Well, we are going to party it up," one student said.

Without being asked, Gabriel Downing had something to say.

"I'm thankful for my family, my home and everything God is giving me," he said.