Pilgrims

Thanksgiving School 2012–Day Three

Today we learned all about Pilgrims and early American colonists!

Our main focus was the Pilgrims, so we read two of my favorite Pilgrim books: Sarah Morton’s Day and Samuel Eaton’s Day. I can’t say enough good things about these books from Kate Waters! I love the photos, which really show what things were like at that time, and we all loved the Old English dialect that the books are written in. Both stories are set in 1627, so after the first Thanksgiving, but when the colony is still fairly new. Samuel is an original Plimoth settler, having come to the settlement with his family on the Mayflower. Sarah came a few years later on a ship named The Anne. Like On the Mayflower and Tapenum’s Day, these have become a staple in our Thanksgiving School every year!

We added Mary Geddy’s Day to our lessons today, as well. This book focuses on colonists in Williamsburg, shortly before the American Revolution. It was interesting to compare and contrast the lifestyles that were represented in the books, and to see just how much things changed from 1627 to the mid-to-late 1700s. We decided that Mary had things a lot easier than Sarah and Samuel, although all of the children agreed that there were things about life at Plimoth Plantation (after that first horrendous winter) that sounded fun…even the chores!

We’ve also been enjoying using some of Scholastic’s Thanksgiving resources, especially Letters from the New World. This is a cool e-mail offering that you can sign up for. Each week, for three weeks, the teacher is e-mailed two “letters,” one from a colonial child, and one from a Wampanoag Indian child. These letters, like the books above, give an idea of what life was like for these two very different groups of people. There’s even an option to listen to the letters (helpful with some of the Indian pronunciations!), as well as additional activities.

Today was also craft day again. This year, we tried something new for the Pilgrims: paper plate pilgrims. It was a fun and fairly easy craft (the boy pilgrim was more difficult to assemble than the girl), and the children enjoyed decorating their pilgrims’ faces. I just love finding a new paper plate craft!

Tomorrow, we learn about the first Thanksgiving itself!

Thanksgiving School–Day Five

Since we learned about the life of a Pilgrim girl on Thursday, it seemed only fair that on Friday we learn about what it would have been like to be a Pilgrim boy in Samuel Eaton’s Day. This is, naturally, set up very much like the book we read about Sarah Morton, but Samuel’s day is quite different as he is a boy, and has different responsibilities. Like the other book, this was also photographed at Plimoth Plantation, and it also gives a great idea of what it was like to be part of a Pilgrim family.

In keeping with our “boy” theme, as well as continuing to learn about real people, on Friday we focused on Squanto, in Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving. This is a beautiful book, because of the way the author makes parallels between Squanto being sold as a slave, and the same thing happening to Joseph in the Bible. It is easy to see God’s hand in way the whole Thanksgiving story unfolded when reading this story.

We also read another book in the “If You…” series: If You Were at the First Thanksgiving. There is some overlap between this book and the Mayflower story, but there is enough detailed information to make it worth it. The question and answer format continues to be popular, and I look forward to using more of these books in future unit studies.

Our craft for the day was a Pilgrim boy to match the Pilgrim girl we made on Thursday. They can both ride in our paper plate Mayflowers, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they also hunt the turkeys we’re going to be making next week!

This was also field trip day–we went to the St. Louis Art Museum to view their pre-Columbian and Native American art collections.

Thanksgiving School–Day Four

On Thursday, we learned about the lives of people (both real and fictional) who lived around the time of the first Thanksgiving. We started with another book by Kate Waters: Sarah Morton’s Day. These books are very popular with Turkey and Bunny, because they really show what it would have been like to be a child in Pilgrim days, and because the children featured in them were actual residents of Plimoth Plantation (although these accounts are likely fictionalized). They learn everything from how they ate (children standing up), to what they wore (lots of petticoats for the girls!), to what kind of chores they had (lots of them!). And the photos are all set at Plimoth Plantation, so they really get a feeling for what the homes looked like.

As long we were learning about a Pilgrim girl, we also decided to also learn about an Indian girl in The True Story of Pocahontas. This is a “Step Into Reading” book, which made it perfect for Turkey and Bunny to practice reading aloud. They really like learning about real people, so this was a good book for them, even if they were once again confronted with some of the injustices found in history.

CPH publishes a book that we read every year–Thanksgiving: A Harvest Celebration. I really like this one because it doesn’t shy away from mentioning God, and the fact that we should still be thankful to Him, not only on Thanksgiving, but every day.

Since we had focused on Pilgrim girls, our craft was a Pilgrim girl which will eventually go into our paper plate Mayflowers. I found a package of these crafts at Jo-Anns for around $1 on clearance, and I’ll be able to use them for a few years, including with Ladybug when she starts school, so I’m very please with my find!

Thanksgiving School

After spending a full week week learning about Native Americans, including an awesome field trip, we had a very relaxed three-day school-week, where we learned about Pilgrims, the first Thanksgiving, and the origin of some of our other Thanksgiving traditions.

Most of the books we read we also used last year. Some of those Turkey and Bunny remembered from last time, and looked forward to, and others they’d completely forgotten, so they were like new. And I had one new book to read, too–a good mix, I think!

Monday we learned about the life of a fictional Pilgrim boy in Samuel Eaton’s Day. We also read Thanksgiving: A Harvest Celebration, which is a nice summary of the first Thanksgiving (also from a fictional perspective). We put together a “thankful tree”–it was very interesting to see what things Turkey and Bunny are particularly thankful for. I discovered that Bunny focused more on the people in her life, while Turkey focused more on things.

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Tuesday we continued our series about life at the time of the first Thanksgiving with Sarah Morton’s Day. It’s a nice companion to Samuel Eaton’s Day (as well as Tapenum’s Day from last week), and Turkey and Bunny both enjoyed learning about what a day in the life of a Pilgrim child was like, from the clothes that they wore and the chores that they had, to the food they ate and the games they played.

We read our new book on Tuesday as well–An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving by the same author who wrote one of my favorite books from childhood (Little Women)–Louisa May Alcott. This was a charming book about children attempting to prepare a Thanksgiving feast for their parents in the 1800s. We had a fun time identifying the parts of the meal that were the same as ours (Turkey, of course!), and what was different (apple slump, for one). When we were finished, we made the same hand and foot-print turkeys that we made last year. Fun to see how they’ve grown, and fun to see how they assemble them differently every year!

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Wednesday we read a somewhat fictionalized account of the first Macy’s Parade–Milly and the Macy’s Parade–and a fun little book called The Night Before Thanksgiving, written in the same style as the classic Night Before Christmas. Turkey and Bunny were especially looking forward to this one, because it’s so silly and humorous, but it also touches on many Thanksgiving traditions, such as football, family gatherings, and leftovers on Friday!

We also began making pretty glittered turkey puppets–the assembly of those had to wait until Thanksgiving Day after the glue had dried, but we made a great mess with the glitter on Wednesday!

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