1-2-3 Come Learn About Pilgrim Children With Me!
Happy TBT (Throw Back Thursday!) Here are a few "Oldies" but "Goodies" that I think you'll enjoy.
Having taught about the first Thanksgiving and Pilgrims for years, I thought I was pretty knowledgeable. My husband and I also visited the outstanding Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth Massachusettes, which made me appreciate the hardships these people endured even more. If you've never been to this historical place, I highly recommend it!
I thought it would be fun to delve into the life of a child during 1620. I felt students would find it very interesting to compare themselves with a Pilgrim child's life.
After over 30 hours doing research, visiting countless websites and perusing 20+ books, I learned so many interesting facts, and truly enjoyed this journey of discovery. I hope you will too. Click on the link to view/download the Pilgrim Children Packet.
Start with the KWL to see where your kiddo's are at. I've included one in color to do as a whole group, and another in black line for students to fill in on their own.
Afterwards, introduce your study, by reading several non-fiction as well as fictional books. I've included a bibliography of 25 of my all-time favorite Pilgrim books. Later, ask your students if they think that the Pilgrim children who lived during that time period, were really different than the children of today.
I feel there is no better way to launch children into comparison and contrast, that's easy and understandable, than to use Venn diagrams. I've included 12 different Venn diagrams in the packet, so that children can compare & contrast clothing, chores, homes, and education, as well as games and toys.
Students can work independently, with a partner, or you can do the Venn diagrams as a whole group activity.
Personally, I'd start as a whole group and use the partially filled-in Venn diagrams, so that students can learn more interesting facts about the Pilgrim children.
Each Venn diagram has a blank template, as well as a partially filled in one. The circle for present day children can be filled in via a discussion. Choose a different Venn diagram each day, so interest remains high and the amount of content is not overwhelming.
After you have completed all of the Venn diagrams as a whole group, have children pick a partner, and choose a blank Venn diagram to fill in together. This not only reinforces facts, but becomes a tool for you to assess comprehension as well.
Now that students have quite a bit of knowledge about Pilgrim children compared to the children of today, have a discussion where students process this information and come to some conclusions. There's a writing extension for this.
I've also included 4 graphic organizers for even more writing practice + several interesting writing prompts that I think your students will enjoy.
I made a list of the 31 children who were aboard the Mayflower and included their ages. Your kiddo's will find some of the names rather odd, like Truelove, Humility, and Wrestling.
Have students choose a Pilgrim child and write a letter to them. Based on their new knowledge, they could also write a letter back written from the Pilgrim child's point of view!
Besided writing, I wanted to toss in a bit of math. Finding interesting measurement activities is not always easy, but the Mayflower as well as the Pilgrims' homes, provide great segways. I've given the dimensions and converted square feet for you, so that you can chalk off the hold of the ship, where the Pilgrims were crammed for 65 long days, as well as the measurements of the Pilgrims' 1-room homes.
When your students stand inside the chalk lines they will truly understand size and the cramped conditions these children experienced!
Finally, I know your kiddo's will enjoy learning about the games Pilgrim children played, as well as what toys they had. You can start out by asking students if they think that the games they played were different than what some children of today play.
They may be surprised to find out, that some of the games that the Pilgrims played are still around today, and that many common games, were derived from days of old.
I've listed directions of how to play a dozen games, including the popular Nine Man's Morrice (pictured), which is available as an APP. I hope your personal little Pilgrims will enjoy them.
All of these activities can be found in the Pilgrim Children Packet click on the link to view/download it. Now that your students are familiar with the life of a Pilgrim child, scroll down to the next article, and have your kiddos write letters to their classmates, as if they were really a youngster living during this tiime period.
Thanks for visiting. Now that some of my computer work is done for the day, it's time to make a big pot of vegetable beef barley soup. The frost is indeed on the pumpkins, so it's the perfect day for a nice hot bowl of mmm mmm good!
"Be thankful for what you have and you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." -Ophra Winfrey
- pilgrim activities
- Thanksgiving activities
- venn diagram activities
- writing prompts for Thanksgiving
- pilgrim writing prompts
- venn diagrams comparing Pilgrim children to today's children
- comparing then and now
- comparing and contrasting Thanksgiving
- measurement activities,
- common core pilgrims
- common core Thanksgiving
- Daily 5 activities for November
1-2-3 Come Do A Few More Thanksgiving Activities With Me
One of the loose ends I just completed was the fall time cards, so if you are looking for analog as well as digital time activities and games, click on the links for It's Turkey Time and Time For Pumpkins.
I've had several visitors inquire if I'm going to start designing some activities for older elementary students.
It's certainly on my bucket list, as I've taught many grades: PK, K, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, (prepped an entire summer for 8th before I was bumped back down, 3 days before school started! ) assisted with MEAPS for 5th, and taught 9th, 10th, 12th + college. Whatever grade I was teaching at the time, became my favorite.
I think lots of the writing prompt activities on the site can be given to older students. Writing is one of my "hot buttons" and I'm passionate about motivating students to WANT to write. I truly believe that if you grab their interest, students will excitedly get down to business. It's one of the reasons I just designed the Dear Pilgrim Letter Writing packet.
As I was doing research on the Pilgrims I came across the wonderful Scholastic Thanksgiving site. They teamed up with Plimoth Plantation (this IS spelled correctly) to make a wonderful virtual field trip your kiddo's can go on.
Among the many cool things they have on the site, are fictional letters written by the Pilgrim child "Lizzie" to her Aunt Constance, as well as several from the Wampanoag.
I got to thinking that this would make an awesome writing prompt for older el and could even be attempted with lower el with some prior discussion, and examples.
After reading several stories about the Pilgrims, so that your students have some knowledge of their life and times, have them write a letter to a Pilgrim child on the Mayflower.
My Pilgrim Children packet is chock full of information, as well as a list of the names of the 31 real kids on the Mayflower.
Write your students' names on the quill tags. Children choose one and write a letter to their "Pilgrim" classmate. That child receives the letter and then writes one back, as if they were a real Pilgrim child. This is a great way to practice writing from a specific perspective, as well as explaining point of view.
I spent some time searching the Internet for Pilgrim letter examples that you can share with your students, and compiled a list of links. I also recommend that you write one yourself, so that your students know what's expected of them.
Encourage your class to use specific details about the Pilgrims that they have learned. Click on the link to view/download the Dear Pilgrim Letter Writing Prompt Packet.
Finally, another interesting writing prompt for students would be to have them write about the Thanksgiving vacation of their dreams. They have unlimited funds to plan an unbelievable (sky's the limit) Thanksgiving.
Brrrring! The bell rings and they are on "holiday" as the English would say. Where are they going, with whom, what are they wearing, playing, doing, eating, learning. . . ? It's all in the details and you want plenty of them.
Writing can be a one-pager where students share their page and you collect and collate the pages into a class book, or have students do lots more writing, by filling in the pages to a fictional fun travel journal.
I've also included diary pages for yet another writing option. Click on the link to view/download the "A Feast Of Fictional Fun" Thanksgiving break packet.
Thanks for visiting. It's a typical dreary November day, drizzly and damp here in Michigan. The perfect kind of weather to put another log on the fire and curl up with a good book. Wishing you a relaxing, warm-fuzzy kind of day.
"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse." -Henry Van Dyke
1-2-3 Come Do Some Thanksgiving Turkey Activities With Me
Come November, it can become a bit boring for kiddo's to review letters, numbers, and various other basic standards. Yet it's imparative to keep kids practicing these skills, so they retain them, as well as for slower learners to finally be able to "get it" and catch up.
With that in mind, I designed some "Stuff Me!" turkey worksheets that make reinforcing upper & lowercase letters, counting, adjective use, and sight word recognition more fun.
There are 6 "Stuff Me" skill sheets, that ask students to stuff their turkey with something. I've also included a "you-fill-in-the- blank" one, to program with whatever.
Some other ideas you could do would be: verbs, nouns, sight words, student names, names that begin with T, colors, rhyming words, words that contain the U vowel, spelling words, ways to show a given number etc.
To add to the fun, set a timer for 1 to 2 minutes. Challenge students to write in as many as they can, before the timer rings. For addition practice, have students count up their total and write it down on their recording sheet.
When you have completed as many Stuff Me worksheets as you want, have students add things up to arrive at a grand total.
Be sure and do these activities along with your students. You might also want to revisit a worksheet to see if any of your kiddos can beat your totals. Use the word worksheets, for something different, for your Daily 5 activities. Click on the link to view/download the "Stuff Me" activity packet.
Another "turkey-rific" writing activity, I designed several years ago, and just revamped today. My Thanksgiving Dinner, continues to be a favorite among visitors so I wanted to mention it today.
There are several options for the cover of the booklet. In the first photo I used a large paper plate, glued just the cover to the center then stapled the other pages together and glued them on a second paper plate.
Punch a hole in the side and connect the front and back cover plates with a piece of yarn. The Dollar Store sells plastic "silverware" that is silver and looks so realistic! I used glue dots to add that finishing touch.
If you want things to be a bit more colorful, use decorative fall paper plates. The Dollar Store also sells these. In the bottom photo I used a small 8 inch plate, put the entire booklet on that and then glued it to a construction paper "placemat" gluing the "silverware" on either side.
Completed projects make a cool bulletin board. Use a "real" plastic or fabric tablecloth for your background and scatter on the plates.
Students read the simple sentence, trace and then write the food word and add end punctuation.
You may want students to include an adjective when they are writing their sentences. i.e. I am going to eat warm homemade bread.
Students have the option to put in the word NOT if they won't be eating that food, or create their own picture page of what they will be eating. I've included a blank page template for this.
I've also included a different cover that says: My Favorite Dinner and a blank page template, for students you may have in class that don't celebrate this holiday. They can make a booklet with their favorite foods, or a special meal that their family makes for one of their celebrations.
When everyone is done, read the booklet aloud, to review concepts of print, stopping to share pages that are different. The packet also includes 10 traceable word cards. These are the words that were used in the booklet.
You can use them for a Daily 5 word work activity to help reinforce word recognition. Click on the link to view/download the My Thanksgiving Dinner "craftivity".
After you have read a few books about the first Thanksgiving, a nice follow up to the above activity, would be to have students complete a Venn diagram comparing their Thanksgiving celebration with the Pilgrim's.
There's also a Venn diagram comparing Thanksgiving then and now. Click on the link to view/download the Thanksgiving Venn Diagram.
My personal favorite book about Thanksgiving is an awesome rhyming story, by Diane Z. Shore. It's entitled: This Is The Feast.
For more books, click on the link to view/print a list of 70 of my favorite Turkey & Thanksgiving Books.
Thanks for visiting today. I hope you can strut on over tomorrow for another FREEBIE hot off my computer.
Feel free to PIN away. If you'd like to see all of the wonderful-educational FREEBIES, that I can fritter an entire morning away looking for and pinning, click on the heart button to the right of the article. I've done lots of fun work, so that you don't have to!
"A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." -Tyrion Lannister
1-2-3, Come Play A Quick, Easy and Fun Turkey-Math Game, With Me!
As a child, I enjoyed playing the game Battleship. This pencil-paper game, has been played in various forms since the 1930’s. In 1967, Milton Bradley made the first plastic pegboard version, which is my personal favorite.
When Online games became popular, visitors were able to play against the computer, with no need for an opponent. If you're looking for a kid-friendly game site that makes a nice independent computer center, Primary Games does a nice job and has a Battleship option.
Since all sorts of math skills are practiced while playing the Battleship game, I decided to adapt the concept for the classroom, and designed Turkey Battle.
This quick, easy and fun Thanksgiving turkey game, will help students practice strategy, coordinated pairs, skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s, as well as addition and tally marks.
However, younger children can also play the game, by simply capturing turkeys. They'll be practicing the life skills needed to play games, as well as simple counting, number recognition from 1-5, plus uppercase letter recognition from A-E.
Students choose a Pilgrim opponent. Their mission is to capture all of their rival’s turkeys before they capture all of theirs.
So there's no peeking, use file folders as a privacy screen. (I've included a cover for these, if you want to decorate them.) Hidden behind the screen, Pilgrims position the turkeys on their “battle board”. There are two different sizes to choose from.
Older students record their hits via tally marks then add up the point values of each hit via skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. A point poster is provided, that you can hang up to assist in this.
If you want to give the game an extra twist and make it a bit more exciting, students can use the "Kaboom!" bomb cards. This gives kiddos another way to win. Here’s how: Students get 3 bomb tiles to scatter on their battle board. If their Pilgrim opponent sets off all three land mines, then they have lost the game.
The turkey battle board consists of 25 boxes on a grid. There are 15 turkey tiles for students to place on their battle board. There are 5 turkey tiles for each of the following point values: 2, 5 and 10 points.
Children decide how to win the game. Set a timer for 5-10 minutes; the Pilgrim who captures the most number of turkeys is the winner or the Pilgrim with the highest point value when the timer rings, is the winner.
To play, students alternate turns and get only one guess to capture a turkey. The first Pilgrim calls out an ordered pair (i.e. A5) and his Pilgrim opponent informs them if they have captured a turkey, and if so, its point value.
Pilgrims mark an X on their recording sheet of where they have guessed and make a tally mark on their paper in the appropriate point value place when a turkey is captured.
So that children know when all of their turkeys have been captured, the captured turkey tile is removed from their battle board. Have students put the captured turkey tiles back in their Snack Baggie as they play, so they won't lose them.
The game is done, when the timer rings. I’ve included certificates of praise that you can pass out. (There are ones in color as well as black line.) I find these mini certificates are a simple, yet effective way, to build self-esteem and good sportsmanship.
Click on the link to view/download the Turkey Battle November Math Game. Thanks for visiting today. My daughter Kelli, had baby Kaitlyn Monday night, so I'm off to do some super-fun "tickled pink" shopping. Wishing you a blessed day.
"We may all have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." -Martin Luther King Jr.
Howl With The Owls And Learn About Vowels!
Vowel Owls are a fun, hands-on way to teach Common Core State Standards:RF.K3b, RF.K2a, RF.K2d, RF.K3c.
Students sort the 570 CVC & Dolch word cards into the various long and short vowel owl cups.
The Vowel Owls make a great "Word Work" Daily 5 activity. The cards are just the right size, small for little hands and easy printing. With 60 CVC words on a page, and 10 pages, you'll have enough cards to practice as a whole group. 
I've also included a Vowel Howl game board, as another option for a fun way to practice long & short vowel sounds, as well as a list of other things you can do with the word cards, including games, + sorting the cards by rhyming sounds, to cover another Common Core State Standard.
Click on the link to view/download the Vowel Owl Packet.
Thanks for visiting today. Do you have a vowel activity you could share with us? I'd enjoy hearing from you. diane@teachwithme.com or post a comment here.
I hope you and your students get a hoot out of these activities and are enjoying a fun-filled fall! It's brisk this morning and frost is definitely on the pumpkins. Time to drain and bring in our garden hoses. Wishing you a delightful day.
"Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes." -Parkes Robinson
