At this point in time during the Fall months, we've been inundated by just about every table centerpiece and place card idea possible.
Just when we thought we couldn't take another Thanksgiving craft, we spied these Pilgrim Hats that will make for a quick, simple craft to keep kids entertained while you get the feast of the flying beast on the table!
The holidays are filled with fun and excitement, but there's usually a healthy dose of trying to keep the kids out of your hair while you bring all the last minute details together. Instead of stressing, but an older child or family member in charge of helping the little ones make Pilgrim hats!
They're made from a single piece of paper (along with a buckle and ribbon embellishment) and would make for a great family holiday photo or just give them something to do beside chase Aunt Sally's cat until it takes shelter under the bed!
• Get the full instructions for the Pilgrim Hat and Bonnet here
(Image: Martha Stewart)
Chad's Guest House & Reinvented Garage 
Homemade Home: Great DIY Projects for Bedrooms from Our Tours
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Dippy Pink Rug
Wordy Thirty: A Literary Food-Themed Dinner Party
Summer Recipe: No-Bake Strawberry Icebox Cake
Comments (6)
Whew! My kindergartener is supposed to dress as a pilgrim for the "feast" at lunch on Wednesday - I was dreading making a bonnet for that, but how can you be a pilgrim without a bonnet?? This is *perfect*.
Ew. I'd be pretty uncomfortable if I went to a Thanksgiving gathering and someone told me the kids were going to make pilgrim bonnets, unless they told me they were also going to make sure to have a historically accurate discussion with the kids about the resulting oppression and genocide, in which case, they probably wouldn't have bothered making pilgrim bonnets in the first place.
Yes, I know it's just a stupid craft, but it's too easy to do harm by only raising the token/superficial aspects of events and cultures without giving the whole context.
eeka--
Translation of Native American message sent with first astronauts to the moon:
"Do not trust these jerks.
They have come to steal your land."
Seriously.... why perpetuate? It isn't as harmless as it seems.
Learning about the pilgrims and Native Americans is a part of our country's history. When a child makes a pilgrim hat, it's not celebrating the actions of the pilgrims. It's educating the children in an age-appropriate way. I have Native American roots, and I talk to my children, ages 6 and 4, about what happened to the Native Americans when "the pilgrims" came to the America. Revisionist history is a dangerous thing. I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of hateful comments for posting this, but the old adage is true: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Our history -- any history -- is rife with abuses of power against other people. But I would no more fail to teach my children about the pilgrims than I would prevent them from learing about George Washington because he was a slaveholder. It's about taking the good with the bad, and learning from it so the bad never happens again.
I don't think anyone is saying that children shouldn't learn about these folks. I certainly wasn't. Just that not everyone who makes these hats is going to teach their children a historically accurate account of how this land was acquired, and it's dangerous when 99% of what kids are hearing about "pilgrims" is that they're just our ancestors, or they founded the country, or they ate turkey and coolwhip hand-in-hand with the natives to celebrate how the natives welcomed their new pasty overlords. Unless the tutorial on making the hats also provides guidelines for how to teach about the event, it's perpetuating a one-sided view and ignorance of how this isn't a happy holiday for everyone.
"I'm sure they didn't mind that people took their land. Stop asking questions and decorate your hat, honey."