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Thanksgiving Hymn Favorites: Learning Activities For Your Homeschool

A season of thankfulness and gratitude would not be complete without sharing thanks to God for all of our blessings. One of our favorite ways to celebrate during this time of Thanksgiving is with hymn studies. Many songs help us to remember our gifts and sing our gratitude to God. Here, I’ve included Thanksgiving hymn favorites for you to enjoy, along with learning activities for your homeschool.

These Thanksgiving hymn learning activities are a favorite for celebrating during this time of Thanksgiving. A season of thankfulness and gratitude would not be complete without sharing thanks to God for all of our blessings. One of our favorite ways to celebrate during this time of Thanksgiving is with hymn studies. Many songs help us to remember our gifts and sing our gratitude to God. Here, I've included Thanksgiving hymn favorites for you to enjoy, along with learning activities for your homeschool.

Our Favorite Thanksgiving Hymns

A few of our family favorites include:

We Gather Together

Count Your Blessings

Come Ye Thankful People Come

Doxology

Give Thanks

One of our favorite ways to celebrate during this time of Thanksgiving is with hymn studies. Many songs help us to remember our gifts and sing our gratitude to God. Here, I've included Thanksgiving hymn favorites for you to enjoy, along with learning activities for your homeschool.
Photo by Amy Law

Thanksgiving Art and Music Activities for Your Homeschool

This year we are excited to be studying Come Thou Fount as we prepare for Thanksgiving. It is a beautiful, timeless hymn written by Robert Robinson in 1757 and later altered by Martin Madan.

Robinson was apprenticed to be a barber and did not have a lot of formal education. During his apprenticeship, he was living a rough life and was not on a good path. However, Robinson was touched by preaching that he heard during this time, which changed his life. He eventually became a preacher, even though he had very little formal education. Robert Robinson spent many years preaching and writing books. He also wrote several hymns, but “Come, Thou Fount” is his most famous hymn.

“Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
mount of God’s redeeming love.”

Hymn study can take many forms. However, we like to look at its origins and the story behind the lyrics and then listen to the hymn sung in various styles. I love how different a song can sound when done by a choir versus a children’s performance. A cappella versions are another great way to listen. We have included a variety of styles in the list below.

Come Thou Fount hymn lyrics and Thanksgiving hymn art lesson for homeschool at You ARE an ARTiST

Thanksgiving Hymn Learning Activities: Come Thou Fount

Next, we love to incorporate art into our hymn study for a hands-on component. Nana has created a beautiful waterfall lesson to accompany “Come Thou Fount.” It is a great visual to help students have that image of a waterfall or fount of blessings. Adding art is helpful for students who are visual learners. This lesson is a beautiful representation of the abundant blessings of God’s love.

Thanksgiving hymn favorites with art lessons!

Finally, if you have musical students, they could learn to play it on their instrument of choice or use their voices for singing. My daughter loves to perform the hymns we are studying on her violin. In learning to play it, they often really internalize the song. Keep in mind that it does not need to be complicated or perfect.

More Thanksgiving Homeschool Resources

There are so many options and different hymns that you could use. You could focus on one for the month or try a new one each week! If you aren’t familiar with using art in your hymn study or hymn studies with your art, be sure to check out The Art of Hymn Study post for more ideas.

You can check out this beautiful art lesson to accompany We Gather Together and other great homeschool ideas for Thanksgiving.

Study more about Thanksgiving with the history of Thanksgiving and the Thanksgiving Day parade in the Thanksgiving course. There is even a lesson to go along with my all-time favorite Thanksgiving book, Cranberry Thanksgiving.

How Great Thou Art” is another song that does a great job of helping us to express praise to God for his goodness.

If you want to mix your art projects up a bit, you can try the fun mixed media collage that accompanies the Count Your Many Blessings hymn. Guest artist Rebecca Parsons created this fun sunflower lesson.

More ways to celebrate the holidays in your homeschool with hymn studies.

Year-Round Holiday Activities For Your Homeschool

The fun of combining art, music, and holidays does not have to end at Thanksgiving hymn favorites! There are many great lessons for Christmas, Easter, even Independence Day.

Christmas hymns have to be my favorite, and there are so many great lessons! We love the “Away in a Manger” art lesson and like to pair it with a hymn study. The video accompanying “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” makes a beautiful painting perfect for gifting.

In addition to hymns, there are many fun Christmas art lessons, including a great one for the Charlie Brown fans in your home!

As we move into springtime and Easter, the Easter course is full of great Easter lessons, and there are a variety of appropriate hymn-themed paintings in the Hymns course. The “Low in the Grave He Lay” lesson is a powerful hymn paired with a beautiful image.

When summertime and Independence Day roll around, you can do a lesson on America the Beautiful or My Country Tis of Thee.

That is just scratching the surface of all the fun lessons to combine art, hymns, and your favorite holidays!

Dawn is a passionate follower of Jesus, wife to Chris, and homeschool mom of four. In her spare time she loves to read, hike, and write on her blog Schoolin’ Swag. She enjoys reviewing curriculum and helping moms find the right fit for their family.

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Thanksgiving Homeschool Activities You’ll Be Grateful For!

Thanksgiving Homeschool

Thanksgiving is a perfect time to create learning experiences that blend family and fun. These are thanksgiving homeschool activities you’ll be grateful for!

Thanksgiving Homeschool

Years ago, I used to be so busy checking off homeschool lesson boxes that I missed the true meaning of homeschooling. Holidays would pass me by because we were so caught up with staying on track with our curriculum. 

I am beyond grateful that these days are quite the opposite! I take pleasure in slowing down and savoring the sweet moments without sacrificing education. 

It did take me a few years to figure out how to blend learning, family, and fun creatively. But once you learn how to make it all come together, you can have the most magical time learning together. 

Thanksgiving and Fall are some of the best opportunities to create these types of learning experiences too! 

Thanksgiving Homeschool Activities

For the record, we don’t do this on the daily. I would never want you to look at some of our best times and think this is what our homeschool looks like every day. But, I do try to make something special happen at least once every two weeks or so. I find it helps to keep our homeschool fun, and my kids enjoy looking forward to our next special homeschool occasion. 

For this particular experience, we chose to get some mileage out of our You ARE an Artist Complete Clubhouse Membership at ChalkPastel.com. Our homeschool has been so blessed by our membership that I can’t stress enough how much you need one too!

The membership does more than just add art to your homeschool. A membership with You ARE An Artist enhances the learning that is already going on in your homeschool. Think of it as upsizing your homeschool! 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

Homeschool Resources For Every Day Of The Year

•Plan art into practically any homeschool lesson.

•Enjoy tea times with art. 

•Use a daily clickable calendar with art prompts.

•Utilize resources like the Curriculum Match-Up Checklist and add art to all of your homeschool history and science lessons. 

•Never miss celebrating a holiday or season in your homeschool with art. 

•Say goodbye to dull homeschool days. 

•Create custom unit studies – here is a wonderful example of our day filled with Johnny Appleseed activities.

 •Incorporate the entire family. (I love family-style homeschooling opportunities!) 

You really can look like the fun mom with a Clubhouse Membership, especially if you struggle with adding excitement to your homeschool days! I speak from personal experience. 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

Our Thanksgiving Homeschool Lesson Plans

I plan to share with you all of the resources we used and hope you are inspired to plan a day unique to your homeschool. It’s an example of an easy way to make a simple unit study. We are incorporating an excellent array of fall nature, Thanksgiving, and history. 

Usually, I will block out the entire day to have fun around these themed type homeschool lessons. It gives us plenty of time to bake because you have to have treats, right? And the baking allows for some hands-on fun too! So it’s fitting that the featured treat for this day should be pumpkin pie. 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

We are currently exploring the season with a nature journal that’s perfect for autumn. The journal is packed full of information, including seeds, migration, autumn, and nature tracking. It also has hands-on ideas, writing prompts, and so much more. These fall art lessons pair so well with what we are learning through our informative nature journal.  

I love including all of my children on days like these. So I try to mix a balances blend of things they can all do together, along with a few more advanced things for my oldest and more age-appropriate activities for the younger ones. 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

With that said, we are using the Fall Leaves art tutorial for early learners and the Acorn and Wind in the Tree art lessons that are a bit more challenging. These all blend nicely with our nature journal activities and what we have been learning. 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

You could also add The Voyage of the First Thanksgiving art lesson because it’s a perfect match for early American History. Long gone are the days of boring mapping lessons in your homeschool. You ARE An Artist takes mapping to a whole other level! Your kids are guaranteed to love this one. It’s a must-add to your Thanksgiving homeschool lessons. 

And with saving the best for last, we are forever grateful because of HIM. Our homeschool keeps God at the center, and I love old hymns. I had to include the We Gather Together art tutorial; it helped tie everything together with thankfulness and gratitude. 

We did our art lesson as we listened to various versions of the hymn We Gather Together. The hymn is a fantastic reminder about bringing family and friends together to give thanks to God. 

Thanksgiving Homeschool

I encourage you to introduce this hymn to your children. You ARE An Artist also included a link to a hymn study on the song if your kids want to research the history behind the hymn too. If you are anything like me, I find such value in these little additions to our learning. 

Don’t forget to pull out some of your favorite read alouds to enjoy too!

Resources For Your Own Thanksgiving Homeschool Experience

Here is a quick recap of everything we used and a few others you may want to incorporate too! 

The Voyage of the First Thanksgiving Art Tutorial from the Maps Clubhouse Complete Exclusive

Preschool Fall Leaves Art Tutorial from the Preschool Fall Video Art Lessons Clubhouse Edition

Wind in the Tree and Acorn Art Tutorials from the Fall Video Chalk Art Lessons Clubhouse Edition

We Gather Together Art Tutorial from the Hymns Clubhouse Edition

Thanksgiving Homeschool

A few other art tutorials that you might want to include in your Thanksgiving unit study:

Pumpkin

Thankful for Art Resources

Norman Rockwell 

Acrylics Fall Tree Reflection

Thanksgiving Homeschool

Quick Tips: Don’t feel like you have to squeeze it all in one day. Spread these lessons out over a week or a month, but don’t rush them! Enjoy this time with your family, learning and creating together, savor these sweet moments. 

And if you don’t fit it all in, there is always next year! Homeschooling isn’t a race; it’s a journey. 

I hope that this gives you some ideas to expand on and plan around. Our plans were simple yet packed full of goodness and education. 

You ARE an ARTiST Clubhouse members enjoy a Thanksgiving companion workbook with Fast Facts, Overviews, Gratitude Prompts, a Thanksgiving Planner and MORE!

Grab Your Homeschool Lessons Here and Start Planning Today! 

Courtney is a Jesus-pursuing, native Texan, homeschool mom of three, and she believes homeschooling can be a peaceful and productive rhythm. At Grace, Grow & Edify she helps families create peaceful homeschooling atmospheres through faith, organizational strategies, and cultivating strong roots at home. She is also the founder of Homeschool Mastery Academy.