Wampanoag Thanksgiving
Grade Levels: 3 - 5
Name:__________________________________________Date:_______________________
The Children's Museum in Boston has created a website
about the Wampanoag people, including their current culture and history. Let’s
look at a few pages from this site in order to learn more about what
Thanksgiving means to the Wampanoag Indians. Use the information you find on the
site to answer the following questions.
I. Go to the page “Thanksgivings”:
http://www.bostonkids.org/educators/wampanoag/html/w-thanks.htm
1) To the Wampanoag, is Thanksgiving just one day?
2) Did the Wampanoag have enough food before and around the time when the Pilgrims
arrived in America?
3) According to Ramona Peters, what does “Thanksgiving” mean
to the Wampanoag traditionally?
4) Why does Frank James think Thanksgiving is for white people? Why is this
day difficult for him?
II. Now go to the page “Information on Foods”:
http://www.bostonkids.org/educators/wampanoag/html/w-foods.htm
5) What is a seasonal diet?
6) How were the Wampanoags able to have enough food during
the winter months?
7) Name two foods that Earl Mills mentions that you’ve never
eaten.
8) Name two foods that Earl Mills mentions that you have
eaten.
III. Questions for yourself
9) What does Thanksgiving mean to you?
10) Do you have a seasonal diet? If not, why?
11) If you could invent another national holiday to accompany
the harvesting or growing of food, when would it occur and what would it be? For
example, you might celebrate planting seeds in the spring.
