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Thanksgiving is a great time to talk about character traits and tying it all into being thankful and grateful. I have the perfect book to help with teaching character traits to little ones this time of year. This week, we’re reading for our Literacy Snack Idea Cranberries read-aloud, we’re reading Cranberry Thanksgiving, by Wende Devlin.

Every year Grandmother invited a guest for Thanksgiving dinner and allowed Maggie to do the same. “Ask someone poor or lonely,” she always said. Thanksgiving was Grandmother’s favorite day of the year. The cooking was done and her famous cranberry bread was cooling on a wooden board. But she wasn’t happy to find out Maggie had invited Mr. Whiskers to dinner. Would her secret cranberry bread recipe be safe with him in the house? 

This book has so many great lessons in it. From a good reminder to the adults that not everything has to be perfect to invite people over to teaching the kids not to judge someone on looks and to give everyone a chance.

So for this week’s snack, we’re of course having Grandmother’s famous cranberry bread.

THIS ACTIVITY WORKS WELL WITH

Snack Idea

Below is the recipe from the back of the book. Make 2 loaves (double the recipe) for your class. You can tell them one is for them and one is for Mr. Whiskers! If you do not want to or have time to actually make the bread, by all means, stop by the grocery store and pick up a couple of loaves from there!

Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup butter, very cold
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 tsp grated orange peel
• 3/4 cup orange juice
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups light raisins

If you choose, you may substitute cranberries for the raisins to have all cranberry bread. -This is what I did.

Preparation

1. Butter or lightly spray a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.
2. Sift together into large bowl flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
3. Slice butter into 1/4 inch cubes; Cut butter into flour mixture until it is crumbly.
4. Add egg, orange peel, and orange juice; stir briefly until just mixed.
5. Gently fold in cranberries, and walnuts, and/or raisins, if desired.
6. Bake at 350F for 1hr and 10 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Remove from the pan, and cool on a wire rack.

Yield

Makes one loaf.

Free Printable

While the kiddos are enjoying their cranberry bread, I made a free printable for them to work on. They will get to reflect on what lesson they learned from the story and draw a picture of Grandmother’s famous cranberry bread.

You can download the free printable from my TeachersPayTeachers store below.

Do you have any other fun activities you like to do with this book? Share with us on our Facebook page or in the comments below.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jenette