How+Many+Days+to+America+A+Thanksgiving+Story+Reinforcing+Activity

Here is an activity to go along with immigration for a 5th grade classroom to help them understand why people immigrated to North America. 1.) Introduce what immigration is and explain how families came to North America from many different countries. After giving this brief introduction, let students have access to the internet (either schedule a day in the media lab, or have them look it up for homework, etc.) to look up articles in today's current events that deal with immigration and the issues accompanying it. To show them an example of the articles and events they could use, present an article found about Elian Gonzales or other immigrants made famous by the media. 2.) Have the students go home after school and ask their parents if they know where their family ancestors came from and for what reason they think they did come to North America. 3.) The next day of class have the students share what their parents told them and have an emphasis on why they came to North America. 4.) Read __How Many Days To America: A Thanksgiving Story__ to the class. 5.) After reading it, review the hardships that the immigrants faced and how they felt when they finally did reach America. If you feel the students would find a graphic organizer helpful for this, it might be good to include a sequence organizer of some sort to help students summarize the main events and emotions corresponding to those events. 6.) Have the students get in groups of 3 to create a game board with a title that represents immigration, "Immigrant LIFE". All supplies will be provided by the teacher. 7.) The game will consist of immigrants, the game pieces, trying to get from a country of the students’ choice to America. 8.) They will draw designated spaces between the countries that are the starting point and ending point. 9.) Throughout the game, players will draw cards. The students will write in hardships and also positive events on the cards that could happen to the immigrants along the way based on the reading. (For example, a ship filled with thieves came and took all your food, move back 3 spaces) 10.) The finish will be labeled with a reason for coming to America that was discussed in class. Each group is allowed to have a different reason from other groups, but can also have the same one, because of similar reasons and events that caused people to come to America. 11.) This may take a week of class time to finish. The first day can be introduction of the topic and possibly time for group brainstorming. The next two to four days will be spent working on the gameboard, cards, and overall design. On the last day, possibly a Friday, once all the games are completed, the students will play each others’ games in class to reinforce what was involved with immigration.