November 27, 2013 Thanksgiving week in the Navigators class

The timing is perfect this week for the Navigators to study the people who came to America to escape religious persecution--the Pilgrims. We're just finishing up our study of "The Age of Exploration" and are transitioning into the study of the people who came to settle this vast new land of opportunity.  As we study the Colonial Period we'll be looking at the "treasures" (concept of the year!) people came to America to seek which eventually led to the declaration of the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This is what we know when the week starts. Then we begin to read!

We discover many facts in Ann McGovern's book ...If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. 

We read diaries.

  

And non-fiction picture books. 

The Very First Thanksgiving Day

We read about the lives of Pilgrim and Native American children. 

Math time! We make Wampanoag trading beads called Wampum. 

Three purple beads equals 2 cents.
Three white beads equals 1 cent.

Math takes concentration.

Time to think mathematically

And time to document it on paper

We're doing multiplication without even knowing it!

Lots of wampum to trade. 

Some groups made purple, white and gold wampum. This required another level of math. Differentiation at its best.

And now we know:

• The Pilgrims came on the Mayflower. 
• The Wampanoags used wampum beads as money.
• Pilgrims harvest in the fall.
• The Pilgrims' children's names were like Hope, Love, Faith, Remember or Constanta.
• There was a man named Squanto. He was very nice.
• The Pilgrims built their houses. They also figured out how to plant crops. 
• They invited Squanto to their first Thanksgiving.
• They had to go to North America  because of their religion.
• Most Indians did not wear feathers.
• They went to worship God in their own way.
• They harvested before winter came.
• Squanto's village was near the Pilgrims' camp. 
• They wore bonnets.
• It was a hard life for the Pilgrims.
• Some Pilgrim kids wrote diaries.
• They planted corn and peas and beans and wheat.
• They  came to practice their own religion. 
• They had the first Thanksgiving. 
• Most people eat turkey on Thanksgiving.