Pilgrims/Thanksgiving Unit - Day 4

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I hope your day is going great. Today we started out working in our math workbooks. My hope is that we can get through the math books by the end of the year. If we don't I'm okay with that. I do think we are making pretty good progress though and that makes me happy.

After we finished math, we took a virtual tour of the Mayflower. Click Here to take your own virtual tour. We loved it! I know I've told you about this site in previous posts, but I just can't say enough great things about it. I love how it relates the information is such a way that my children can easily understand. I also love the fact that with a press of a button, it will read the paragraphs to your child. This is great for the child that may have some reading difficulties or the mom busy helping others.

After the tour we learned more about the navigation instruments used such as the quadrant and the cross-staff. These instruments helped determine the Mayflower's latitude, or north-south position. 

We also read 50 Facts about the Mayflower Ship & Facts about the Plymouth Colony

What was life like for the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony in about 1627? 

Below is a video that explains just that. 

We also worked on our Pilgrim Unit Study vocabulary words. A great site to help your child learn their spelling and vocabulary words is Vocabulary Spelling City. We use this site a lot and it has helped my girls tremendously. 

We also looked through a book called Pilgrims and Native Americans Hands-on Projects About Life in Early America by Jennifer Quasha.  The book has lots of great hands-on projects and we plan on doing one sometime next week.

Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Unit - Day 3

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Today we started out our day working on our thankful turkeys. The girls each colored their turkeys and wrote what they were thankful for on the feathers. The thankful turkey craft can be found HERE. We then read through our pilgrim unit study that I had printed out from HERE and completed each activity. After we had finished the activities we started working on our pilgrim lapbook. You can find a list of lapbook printables on our Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Resource List blog post. I also found a simple online pilgrim quiz that the girls took turns completing. Each did very well and I was quite surprised at the amount of information they seem to be retaining. I always wonder "are they retaining this?" I'm sure I'm not the only mother who worries about that. It sure is nice when I can see evidence. This is a unit I have been doing with my daughters for a couple years in a row now and I always assumed the information would stick with them. Well funny story. We were with my mother-in-law Monday and she asked my girls if they knew who the pilgrims were. I was smiling confident that they did indeed. Well,  my oldest popped up and said "Do they lay eggs?" Oh boy! I'm not sure what she was thinking, but it was funny and we quickly answered her with the correct information. Needless to say, I think it is important to go back over units yearly or whenever it is convenient to help refresh memories. 

We also located the journey the pilgrims took on the globe. I liked doing this with my visual learners because it helped them really understand the struggles they faced on such a long journey aboard the Mayflower. 

We also read that each family had about a 5' x 5' square of space aboard the Mayflower where they slept, cooked, and lived. After reading this we took a tape measure and measured that out and stood in the square. I think the girls were amazed at how little of a space that truly was. 

Here is a song that my girls enjoyed very much.

They Were The Pilgrims

Today we also read The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George

We hope you are having a great day and hope some of the links we have provided have proved to be useful. 

Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Unit - Day 2 - Pilgrim Unit Resource List

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Follow Jennifer Silcott's board Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Unit Study on Pinterest.

I found this really neat interactive activity and wanted to share it with you all.

What really happened at the First Thanksgiving?

Become a history detective and find out!

Click Here

Here is another great interactive learning activity from Scholastic

Click Here

The First Thanksgiving Story

Pilgrim Unit Study Resources

Below is a list of Free Unit Studies I have found

Pilgrim Unit Study

Pilgrim Unit (7 lessons)

Pilgrims Unit Study  - Pilgrims Timeline

  - Pilgrim Flashcards

Thanksgiving Unit - Full of Printables

Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Unit Unit Study - Thanksgiving and Pilgrims 

Mayflower Teaching Resources

Mayflower Compact

Mayflower Passenger List

Mayflower Craft

Mayflower Fact Book

Mayflower Coloring Page

Plymouth Rock Resources

Plymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

Click Here for a picture of the Plymouth Rock

It is found on on the shore of Plymouth Harbor in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Other Pilgrim Teaching Resources

Pilgrim Coloring Pages

Dr. Pat's On-line Pilgrim Coloring Book

Plymouth Colony - Reading Activity

The Pilgrim Story

Plymouth Colony Clothing

Map of Pilgrim's Journey

History Channel - Thanksgiving

-"It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November."

"Pilgrim, Pilgrim, what do you see?" Mini Book

(Printable book found at Hubbard's Cupboard)

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Writing Practice

FREE Thanksgiving Pack (notebooking, activities, copywork)

Pilgrim Math Activities

Pilgrim Hat Skip Counting by 10 (A Thanksgiving Activity)

FREE Printable - Pilgrim Math: Skip counting by 2

Secret Multiplication Word Puzzle

Thanksgiving ‐ Sixes

Build a Pilgrim Math Game

Pilgrim Multiplication

Thanksgiving/Autumn Tangrams

Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Lapbooks

17th Century Lapbook - A Journey Through Learning

- I opted to print pages 31-40 For our Pilgrim Unit

Thanksgiving Lapbook

Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers & Early American History Notebook Pages

Pilgrim/Thanksgiving Unit Day 1

 Today was another great day of co-teaching with my wonderful mother-in-law. You can follow her on her blog at The Homeschool Hive.


   We started our Pilgrim unit today and I have to say I thought the day went very well. We started out by watching The Mayflower Story. I thought the videos were very informative.

My mother-in-law happened to have a pretty cool copy of the Mayflower Compact that she showed and read to the girls. 

The girls then completed a Thanksgiving writing activity on how they would cook a turkey. I have to say, it was hilarious to read and write down how they thought a turkey should be cooked.

You can find the writing activity here.

I'm pretty sure that the longest time that one girl said a turkey should be cooked was 20 minutes and the shortest time was 4 minutes. Haha! Pretty sure I won't be eating any turkey from them. I will however teach them the right way. :)

We also talked about what the pilgrims packed for their voyage on the Mayflower. My mother-in-law made cute little suitcases out of construction paper. The girls then drew on a piece of paper what they would bring if they were traveling on the Mayflower and placed the paper inside the suitcase. Cute activity. 

The girls even managed to get in a game of battleship. That's math isn't it? :)