The story (and artist!) behind the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade
Learning Objective: Students will learn about the story and artist behind the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Characters
Choose the character you will play.
*Indicates a larger speaking role
Aunt Katie
Girl
Boy
Narrator 1, 2 (N1, N2)
Tony Sarg
Crowd (read by all)
Grandpa
Mary, Tony’s daughter
Puppeteer
Herbert Straus, vice president of Macy’s department store
Reporter 1, 2
Prologue
Aunt Katie: What’s your favorite part of Thanksgiving, kids?
Girl: Definitely the PIES!
Boy: No way. I love the football games!
Aunt Katie: What about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?
Girl: We love the parade!
Aunt Katie: Do you know how the parade became the tradition it is today?
Boy: No! Will you tell us?
Aunt Katie: It all started with a puppet maker named Tony Sarg. The story began more than 100 years ago . . .
Scene 1
Germany, 1887
N1: The streets are filled with people who are dancing and singing.They’re wearing colorful masks and costumes.
N2: It’s Karneval!
N1: That’s a popular festival in Germany.
N2: Tony is 7. He’s there with his grandpa.
Tony: The parade is about to start!
Crowd: Hooray!
N1: Tony is dazzled by the giant figures of kings, queens, and dragons.
Grandpa: Look how they stand 10 to 20 feet high!
Tony: How do they do it?
Grandpa: A person is inside the costume, standing on stilts.
Tony: That’s amazing!
Grandpa: Or a person stands on the ground and uses poles to make the head and arms move.
Tony: They’re like giant puppets!
Scene 2
London, England, 1913
N2: Years later, Tony is grown-up and living in England.
N1: He marries a woman named Bertha, and they have a little girl named Mary.
N2: Tony works as an artist, selling cartoons.
N1: He takes Mary to a puppet show one day.
Tony: Those puppets hang from strings.
Mary: Wow!
Tony: The strings move their heads, their arms, and their feet.
N2: After the show, Tony finds the puppeteer.
Tony: I’ve never seen puppets like yours.
Puppeteer: They’re called marionettes.
Tony: How do the strings work?
Puppeteer: If I told you my tricks, anyone could do this show!
N1: Tony is disappointed.
N2: But he is determined. He attends the same puppet show 50 times to see how the marionettes move.
N1: Then, every night at home, he works hard to make a marionette.
N2: Finally, he succeeds!
Tony: Problem solved—I built a marionette!
N1: Next he creates princes, wolves, witches, and dragons.
N2: He puts on shows for family and friends.
Mary: Hooray for Papa!
Shutterstock.com (Sky, Balloons); Jessie Tarbox Beals/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images (Marionettes); Fotograms News/Nantucket Historical Association (Paint); Photoprint Gravure Company, Inc./Nantucket Historical Association (Elephant)
The American Dream
Tony Sarg moved to the U.S. with the dream of a better life. He rose to fame doing what he loved—drawing and making puppets. He later made giant balloons!
Scene 3
New York City, 1915
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images (Bear Balloon)
Lighter than Air
Parade balloons are filled with a gas called helium—just like party balloons! Helium is lighter than air, so it causes objects like balloons to float.
N1: A war has started in Europe and other parts of the world.
N2: Tony and his family move to New York City to be safer.
N1: People from countries like Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Russia live in the city too.
N2: Tony starts drawing cartoons about the people in New York City.
N1: He draws taxicab drivers, police officers, and actresses!
N2: Within a few years, Tony becomes famous! Newspapers and magazines pay him well for his drawings.
N1: He also leads a puppet company and starts putting on shows for big crowds.
N2: One day in 1924, the vice president of Macy’s department store visits his studio.
Straus: The famous Tony Sarg!
Tony: How can I help you, sir?
Straus: Have you heard of Macy’s?
Tony: Of course. It’s the biggest store in the world!
Straus: I want you to decorate the store windows with something creative. Something to get people’s attention.
Tony (thinking): What if the windows could tell a story with puppets?
Straus: I love it!
N1: Tony makes puppets for window displays.
N2: The displays are a huge hit!
Scene 4
Macy’s, a few months later
N1: Straus calls Tony into his office.
Straus: I need your help. The people who work here come from faraway places that they miss. I’d like to remind them of home during the holidays.
N2: Tony remembers the street festivals of his childhood.
Tony: How about a parade? Parades are popular all over Europe.
Straus: Wonderful idea!
Tony: I’ll make it the best parade New York City has ever seen.
Scene 5
New York City, Thanksgiving Day, 1924
N1: More than 250,000 people line the streets.
Reporter 1: We’re here for the first-ever Macy’s parade.
Crowd: Woooo!
Reporter 2: We have Tony Sarg here.
N2: The reporter points to a line of giant decorated platforms called floats.
Reporter 1: Tell us what you made, Tony!
Tony: I took story characters and turned them into floats.
Reporter 2: And . . . wait, are those cages?
Reporter 1: With live animals inside?
Tony: Yep! We’ve got lions, tigers, and bears.
N1: As the cages pass by, the animals growl and show their teeth.
Crowd: Aaah!
Reporter 2: The children are scared!
N2: Straus finds Tony.
Straus: We can’t use live animals again. We’ll need something else. Something big.
Tony: I’m on it!
Scene 6
New York City, 1927
N1: The parade continues in 1925 and 1926.
N2: Meanwhile, Tony keeps tinkering with ideas to make the parade more exciting.
N1: He shares his ideas with Mary one night.
Tony: What if I used puppets instead of live animals?
Mary: They’d have to be huge.
Tony: I’ll make them as tall as buildings!
Mary: How, Papa?
Tony: I’ll build balloons!
N2: Tony works hard on his idea.
N1: He creates amazing balloon creatures, like a giant cat and a dragon.
N2: The balloons are ready in time for the 1927 parade.
N1: They move down the street, nearly 20 feet high. They are held up by people using wooden sticks.
Crowd: Hooray!
Straus: You’ve done it again, Tony!
Epilogue
Shutterstock.com
Aunt Katie: Since 1927, the parade has gotten bigger and bigger.
Boy: And there are still floats and balloons!
Aunt Katie: That’s right. Tony later attached strings to the balloons so people could steer them through the sky.
Girl: My favorite balloon is Pikachu!
Boy: Mine is Snoopy!
Aunt Katie: Now every year, millions of people watch the parade live in New York City or on TV.
Girl: When I watch this Thanksgiving, I’ll think of Tony Sarg!
Think and Write
Write a note to Tony thanking him for creating balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Include the character traits that helped Tony along the way.
Balloons Through Time
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has featured hundreds of balloons. See how they’ve changed!
Courtesy of Macy’s
1934
Mickey Mouse floats down the street in an early parade. Tony Sarg worked with Walt Disney to bring Mickey to life!
Courtesy of Macy’s
1968
This was the first Snoopy balloon to float in the parade. Since then, Snoopy has made 42 appearances—more than any other character!
Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Macy’s
2024
Last year, Pikachu joined his pal Eevee for a spin on their Poké Ball sled. This was Pikachu’s 24th year in the parade!
Can't Miss Teaching Extras
Learn more about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons in “Balloon Bash,” a Mini Read that explains how these balloons float. You’ll see some familiar faces too—Pikachu and Snoopy!
Stay in the air and read about another flying object in “Giant of the Skies,” a story that takes readers on an adventure through the clouds.
In the mood for more New York City fun? Introduce your class to Rocky, a tiny owl that accidentally made it to NYC in “Rocky’s Big Adventure.”
Table of Contents
4. Differentiate and Customize
Striving Readers, Multilingual Learners, Advanced Readers
1. Preparing to Read
Introduce the Text and Preview Text Features
Set a Purpose for Reading
Introduce Featured Skill
Introduce Vocabulary
2. Close Reading
Reading and Unpacking the Text
Close-Reading Questions (30 minutes)
Critical-Thinking Question (10 minutes)
3. Skill Building and Writing
Featured Skill: Genre
Differentiate and Customize
Build fl uency and boost confi dence with unison reading. Choose a scene, preview challenging words, and then assign students two or three of the characters to read together aloud while you take on the other roles.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade may be an unfamiliar celebration to some of your multilingual learners. Watch our video “Making Macy’s Parade Balloons” to provide these students with background knowledge on what the parade is and what these massive balloons look like. Then encourage students to make a personal connection by asking them if they’ve ever attended a parade (big or small!) before.
Invite students to research one of the balloons featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Research when the balloon fi rst appeared in the parade, how long it was in the parade, and what made it special. Students can write a report or present their fi ndings to the class. As a bonus, include drawings or images of the balloon!
