What if you could travel back in time and experience one of the most talked-about celebrations in American history?
Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation by Diane Stanley, illustrated by Holly Berry, invites young readers to do exactly that.
Through the adventures of two time-traveling twins, Liz and Lenny, children are transported to Plymouth in the autumn of 1621, where they discover what life was like for the English settlers, meet Native American people, and experience a harvest celebration that has become closely associated with Thanksgiving.
But this story offers much more than a glimpse of a historical feast.
It opens the door to conversations about history, traditions, food, community, cultural differences, and the ways people have celebrated the harvest throughout time.
With its engaging storytelling, detailed illustrations, and historical information, this picture book offers plenty of opportunities to explore Thanksgiving beyond the familiar turkey-and-pumpkin-pie traditions.
What Is Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation About?
Wouldn't it be fascinating to visit Plymouth in 1621?
In Diane Stanley's story, Liz and Lenny, the Time-Traveling Twins, visit their grandmother, whose magical hat takes them on another journey into the past.
This time, they travel to Plymouth Plantation during the autumn of 1621.
The twins discover what daily life was like for the English settlers. They explore the settlement, learn about the work involved in preparing for winter, discover unfamiliar foods, and meet members of the Native American community.
They also learn about the three-day harvest celebration that took place that autumn.
Through the twins' experiences, readers discover details about food, clothing, homes, farming, family life, and the traditions of the people who lived during this period.
The story combines historical information with an imaginative time-travel adventure, making the past feel much more accessible to young readers.
Why Children Connect with This Story
Children are naturally curious about how people lived in the past.
They want to know what people ate, what their houses looked like, what children played with, and how everyday life was different from their own.
This book gives them plenty to wonder about.
As they follow Liz and Lenny, children can explore questions such as:
What did people eat in 1621?
What were their houses like?
How did they grow and prepare food?
What clothes did people wear?
How did families spend their days?
What did children do for fun?
How did people preserve food for winter?
What was different about life in the past?
These questions encourage children to look beyond the familiar Thanksgiving celebration and become curious about the historical period.
The book is also a wonderful opportunity to introduce the idea that traditions develop over time and that the way people celebrate today may look very different from celebrations in the past.
A Story That Opens Meaningful Conversations
One of my favorite things about historical picture books is how naturally they encourage children to compare different times, places, and ways of life.
Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation offers many opportunities for these conversations.
Ask questions like:
What do you think life was like in Plymouth in 1621?
What surprised you about the way people lived?
What foods did the people eat?
Which foods look familiar to you?
What things were different from our lives today?
Why did people need to work together?
How did the settlers prepare for winter?
What do you think the children did during the day?
What would you find most difficult about living during this time?
What would you like to experience if you could travel back to 1621?
These questions encourage children to make connections between the story and their own experiences.
They also help develop historical thinking by inviting children to notice similarities, differences, and changes over time.
Try These Book-Based Activities
Create a 1621 Harvest Table
Food is one of the most engaging ways to explore history.
Invite children to investigate the foods mentioned or illustrated in the story.
Create a pretend harvest table using natural materials, toy food, play food, or pictures.
Children can sort the foods into different groups:
Fruits
Vegetables
Grains
Meat and fish
Foods that grow underground
Foods that grow on plants
Then invite them to create their own historical-inspired harvest table.
You can also compare the foods people might have eaten in 1621 with the foods commonly served at Thanksgiving today.
What is similar?
What is different?
This activity encourages observation, classification, vocabulary development, and early science connections.
Build a Plymouth Settlement
What would a settlement look like in 1621?
Provide wooden blocks, cardboard, recycled boxes, craft sticks, and natural materials.
Invite children to design their own small settlement inspired by the illustrations.
They might include:
Houses
Gardens
A meeting place
Storage areas
Paths
Fences
Fields for growing food
Encourage children to think about what people needed to live comfortably and safely.
Why would houses need to be close together?
Where would people grow their food?
How would they protect their supplies?
This becomes a wonderful opportunity for imaginative construction, problem-solving, and early engineering.
Explore the Three Sisters Garden
The story provides a natural opportunity to explore the importance of corn and other crops in the lives of Indigenous communities.
Introduce children to the Three Sisters planting tradition: corn, beans, and squash.
Explain how these three plants can grow together in a mutually supportive planting system.
Invite children to explore the three foods using real vegetables, seeds, pictures, or sensory materials.
They can:
Observe the different seeds.
Compare the shapes and textures.
Sort the vegetables by color and size.
Draw the three plants.
Create a small model garden.
For an additional hands-on experience, provide dried corn, beans, and small squash or gourds for children to investigate.
This activity connects the story to nature, food, agriculture, and Indigenous knowledge.
Compare Then and Now
One of the easiest ways to help children understand history is through comparison.
Create two simple spaces:
Life in 1621
Life Today
Invite children to compare:
Homes
Clothing
Food
Transportation
Toys
Cooking
Communication
Farming
Children can use picture cards, photographs, drawings, or objects to complete the comparison.
Ask:
What do we have today that people didn't have in 1621?
What things have stayed the same?
What would you miss if you lived in the past?
This activity encourages children to recognize how daily life changes over time.
Design a Harvest Basket
Harvesting food was an important part of preparing for the colder months.
Invite children to create their own harvest baskets using small baskets, paper bags, or recycled containers.
Provide pictures or toy versions of seasonal foods.
Children can choose what they would collect and explain their choices.
You might also introduce seasonal vocabulary:
harvest, crops, gather, grow, autumn, seeds, vegetables, basket, field, and season.
For an additional creative extension, children can draw their own harvest baskets and label the foods inside.
Explore Autumn Nature
The autumn setting of the story offers a lovely opportunity to explore seasonal changes.
Take children on a nature walk and invite them to observe the environment.
Look for:
Changing leaf colors
Seeds
Acorns
Pinecones
Different textures
Signs of seasonal change
Birds and other animals
Collect natural materials where permitted and use them to create an autumn nature collection.
Children can sort their discoveries, compare textures, create patterns, or make simple nature collages.
Ask:
Why do some leaves change color?
What happens to plants during autumn?
How do animals prepare for colder weather?
This connects the historical story to the natural world.
Create a Historical Cooking Corner
Food is a wonderful starting point for imaginative play.
Set up a pretend cooking area inspired by the foods and cooking traditions explored in the book.
Provide:
Wooden bowls
Wooden spoons
Toy vegetables
Corn
Small baskets
Fabric pieces
Measuring cups
Pretend cooking pots
Children can pretend to prepare a harvest meal, organize ingredients, serve food, and create their own menus.
Encourage them to describe what they are making and explain which ingredients they have chosen.
This kind of dramatic play naturally supports language development, cooperation, and imaginative thinking.
Make a Then-and-Now Picture Book
Invite children to create a small book comparing life in 1621 with life today.
Each page can focus on one topic:
Homes
Food
Clothes
Transportation
Toys
Farming
Children can draw pictures, add labels, or dictate simple sentences.
For example:
"In 1621, people cooked over an open fire."
"Today, we use ovens and stoves."
This is a lovely way to combine art, literacy, historical thinking, and oral language.
Exploring the Historical Setting
One of the most interesting aspects of this book is its historical setting.
Children can investigate what daily life was like in early Plymouth through the details in the illustrations.
Become history detectives.
Pause on each page and ask:
What do you notice about the houses?
What materials were used to build them?
What are the people wearing?
What objects can you identify?
What are the characters doing?
What clues tell us that this story takes place in the past?
What would be different if this story happened today?
Encourage children to look carefully before reading the text.
The illustrations offer many opportunities for observation, prediction, and discussion.
Children may notice small details that lead to questions you hadn't thought to ask.
Understanding the Wampanoag People
An important part of exploring this story is making sure children understand that the Wampanoag people were not simply visitors to the history of Plymouth.
The Wampanoag are an Indigenous people whose homelands include the region where the English settlers established Plymouth.
They had lived there for thousands of years before the settlers arrived.
Their knowledge of the land, farming, fishing, hunting, and local resources played an important role in the events of 1621.
The autumn gathering remembered as the First Thanksgiving involved English colonists and Wampanoag people. However, the historical record is limited, and the perspectives of the Wampanoag participants are largely absent from the surviving English accounts.
This is an opportunity to help children understand that historical stories can be told from different perspectives.
Ask:
Who lived on this land before the English settlers arrived?
What did the Wampanoag people know about the environment?
How did they use the land and its resources?
Why is it important to learn about both communities?
Whose voices do we hear when we read historical stories?
For additional exploration, consider sharing resources created by the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and books written from Wampanoag perspectives.
It is important to present Indigenous people as living communities with their own histories, traditions, knowledge, and cultures, rather than as characters who belong only to the past.
Discovering Thanksgiving Traditions
Thanksgiving is a wonderful opportunity to explore how traditions are created, shared, and passed from one generation to another.
But traditions do not always stay the same.
The Thanksgiving celebration children recognize today developed over many years, and the modern holiday is not identical to the 1621 harvest gathering.
Invite children to think about the traditions they celebrate with their own families.
Ask:
What special foods do you eat during celebrations?
Are there special activities your family enjoys?
Do you have a favorite family tradition?
Who prepares the food?
Why do families keep certain traditions?
Can traditions change over time?
Children can draw a special family celebration or share a tradition that is meaningful to them.
This creates a beautiful opportunity to recognize that families and communities celebrate in different ways.
Exploring the Illustrations
Holly Berry's illustrations bring the historical setting to life.
The detailed scenes give children plenty of opportunities to examine clothing, buildings, objects, food, and everyday activities.
Try becoming picture detectives.
Before reading the words, pause and ask:
What do you notice first?
What is happening in this picture?
What objects can you identify?
What details tell us about the time period?
What do you think the characters are doing?
What colors do you notice?
Can you find something you have never seen before?
What questions would you like to ask about this scene?
Encourage children to look closely at the details and use the illustrations as a starting point for their own discoveries.
Exploring Sequencing Through the Story
The time-travel adventure provides a natural opportunity to practice sequencing.
Invite children to retell the main events of the story:
Liz and Lenny visit their grandmother.
Their grandmother takes them on a journey through time.
They travel to Plymouth in 1621.
They explore the settlement and discover how people lived.
They learn about food, farming, and everyday activities.
They meet members of the Native American community.
They experience the autumn harvest celebration.
Children can draw each event, arrange picture cards in order, or write a simple sentence for each part of the story.
You can also introduce the language of sequencing:
first, next, then, after that, and finally.
This helps reinforce beginning, middle, and end while encouraging children to retell events in their own words.
Growing Language Through Rich Conversations
Historical picture books are wonderful for introducing new vocabulary in a meaningful context.
As children explore the story, they can practice:
Describing historical settings
Identifying objects
Comparing past and present
Making predictions
Retelling events
Sequencing
Asking questions
Describing illustrations
Explaining similarities and differences
Expressing opinions
You can introduce words such as:
settlement, harvest, colony, plantation, pilgrim, Wampanoag, Indigenous, crops, agriculture, tradition, autumn, feast, community, and historical.
Encourage children to use these words while discussing the story and participating in hands-on activities.
Growing Social Awareness Through Story
Beyond its historical content, this book offers opportunities to explore important ideas about community and human experiences.
Children can begin thinking about:
Cooperation
Community
Traditions
Cultural differences
Sharing resources
Food and agriculture
Respect
Belonging
History
Different perspectives
Gratitude
These conversations help children understand that people may have different experiences of the same historical event.
They also encourage curiosity and respect for cultures and traditions beyond their own.
A Wonderful Opportunity for Cross-Curricular Learning
One of the things I love about a book like Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation is how easily it connects different areas of learning.
A single story can inspire days of exploration.
Literacy
Children can explore sequencing, vocabulary, comprehension, retelling, descriptive language, and storytelling.
History
Explore the year 1621, historical settings, daily life, and the differences between the past and present.
Science
Investigate plants, seeds, seasonal changes, agriculture, and the natural environment.
Mathematics
Sort harvest foods, count objects, compare quantities, create patterns, and measure ingredients during pretend cooking.
Art
Create harvest collages, settlement drawings, autumn landscapes, and historical-inspired illustrations.
Dramatic Play
Set up a harvest market, cooking corner, or imaginative historical setting where children can explore different roles.
Social-Emotional Learning
Explore community, cooperation, respect, gratitude, and the importance of understanding different perspectives.
Extending the Learning with a Book Companion
One picture book can become the starting point for so many meaningful learning experiences.
My Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation Book Companion extends the story with activities designed to help children explore the historical setting, develop early literacy skills, build vocabulary, practice comprehension, and connect the story to hands-on learning.
Children can revisit the story through sequencing, discussion, creative exploration, and activities inspired by the world of 1621.
The goal isn't simply to remember what happened in the story.
It's to encourage children to become curious about the past, ask questions, make connections, and discover how books can open the door to learning across different subjects.
The Story Behind the 1621 Harvest Celebration
Part of what makes this book interesting is that it introduces children to an event that has become an important part of American cultural history.
In the autumn of 1621, English colonists and members of the Wampanoag community gathered for a three-day harvest celebration in the Plymouth area.
The event was not called Thanksgiving at the time. The familiar national holiday developed much later, and the story of the gathering has been retold and interpreted in different ways over the centuries.
There is much more to this history than the familiar image of Pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a meal.
Exploring different historical sources and Indigenous perspectives helps us create a more complete understanding of the past.
This is a valuable reminder that history is not simply a collection of dates and events. It is also about the people who lived through those events and the different ways their experiences are remembered.
Final Thoughts
Thanksgiving on Plymouth Plantation is a lovely starting point for exploring a fascinating period in American history.
Through its time-travel adventure, children can discover how people lived, what they ate, how they worked, and how communities came together during the harvest season.
It also gives us an opportunity to look more closely at the traditions we celebrate today and the stories behind them.
A picture book can take children somewhere they have never been.
It can introduce unfamiliar ideas, encourage thoughtful questions, and inspire discoveries that continue long after the final page.
And sometimes, the most meaningful part of reading a historical story is realizing that there is always more to learn, more perspectives to consider, and more stories waiting to be explored.
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