Jill Ferguson

Teacher Applicant: Jill Ferguson
Project Ttile: Mini Pilgrims Survive Desperate Crossing
School: Crete Elementary School
Grade: 2

Project Description:
Our classroom became the Mayflower, with its slippery decks and crowded conditions. The second grade children joined and learned about the actual young children from the Mayflower, and their struggles to survive.

The History Channel series “Desperate Crossing” and “The History of Thanksgiving” helped my 24 second graders understand the Pilgrim’s struggles as we sailed across the Atlantic on our classroom Mayflower.

Prior to our trip, we studied maps to develop an awareness of the route and distance we were to travel. We did a mini-lesson on needs and wants to help us decide what to pack for the journey. We learned about different methods of food preservation such as drying and salting foods, and we tasted hardtack, jerky, and dried fruit to better realize what our foods would be like during the trip.

Our ship sailed the rough seas for the first 12 days of November prior to landing at Plimoth. While onboard ship we played Pilgrim children’s games such as cat’s cradle, and paper-scissors-stone.

The children role-played Pilgrim children from the day they left Holland, during their desperate crossing, while establishing a colony at Plimoth, while developing relationships and understanding of the Penobscot and Wampanoag Native Americans, and re-enacting a near-authentic Thanksgiving dinner with Squanto and Massasoit as our dinner guests.

The month-long second grade unit was integrated into art, music, reading, social studies, math, computer and writing.
Oceanus Hopkins was actually born during our trip. The baby Oceanus (doll) was carried and cared for by each of the children in the room during the entire month-long trip. They became very responsible in making sure Oceanus was safe on the ship, and later on land.

Daily journal entries were read to, and written by the children, to help prepare them for and to summarize the day-to-day events of the trip and landing.

Additional activities included measurement of the ship’s size, having 101 children in a 90’ space to realize the crowded conditions, singing Thanksgiving songs, choral Thanksgiving/Pilgrim poetry, comparing Pilgrim children’s clothing to our modern clothing of today, and using the books Samuel Eaton’s Day and Sara Morton’s Day to compare the responsibilities of Pilgrim boys and girls.

After landing, the children worked to help establish Plimoth as their home. This included studying all about the Native Americans of the Northeast, learning how to hunt and plant food to survive in the new land, making friends with members of the Penobscot tribe, learning about how to construct the Pilgrim homes, and how to survive the struggles the Pilgrims now faced on the land.

Writing Workshop activities included the daily journals, as well as an autobiography by each child titled “My Life as a Pilgrim”. The children had the freedom to develop their writing around any timeframe by writing as a “Pilgrim child.” They applied and summarized the things they had learned, and added personal voice/emotion to their own Pilgrim experiences.

Our culminating activity was re-enactment of the celebration of the abundant harvest and of our living through the first year of struggles. We came to our first Thanksgiving Dinner dressed in our Pilgrim garb. The dinner was done with the wonderful help of our parents. Foods tasted included: deer, duck, fish, pumpkin pie, cornbread, corn, hominy, pheasant, turkey, cranberries, nuts, and of course our British tea!

Learning Objectives:

    * Develop an understanding of the Pilgrim’s struggles while aboard the Mayflower and while establishing the Plimoth settlement.
    * View past historic events and become aware of time sequences in history and how things have changed since then.
    * Role-play Pilgrim children to truly have empathy and understanding of their lives.
    * Realize the importance of living together peacefully with others, and learn that with hard work anything is possible.

Cable Programs and Technology Used:
The History Channel’s “Desperate Crossing: The True Story of the Mayflower” contained a wealth of information to visually support our own Mayflower trip. I pre-recorded the series so that children could see clips of authentic Pilgrim clothing, the Mayflower and Speedwell, understand the travels on the rough seas, the diet and illnesses the Pilgrims suffered while on board, the land they settled in, the hunting, the building of homes, and the threat and fear they had of the Native Americans. During the viewings, we paused the video to discuss each topic, often using the show to introduce and then again to summarize.

Because they could see the near actual conditions on the video, the children were amazed at how crowded the ship was and that anyone could live through the rough seas. They struggled to understand how Squanto could be so helpful to the Pilgrims, knowing it was the white man who had kidnapped him and taken him to England. The fact that only 50 Pilgrims were still alive in February became real as we realized that half of our second grade class would not have lived through the first year.

“The History of Thanksgiving” highlighted and summarized many of the traditions of Thanksgiving, both in past and present times. The children were surprised that President Lincoln was actually the person who created the official holiday. The highlights of the original 1621 dinner enhanced our memories of the Native Americans and Pilgrims who shared the harvest celebration. Learning about the history of the holiday helped connect the past to the present.

Using the Internet, we took virtual tours of the Mayflower, toured Plimoth Plantation, heard interviews with Pilgrim characters, viewed images of the ship, images of Pilgrim clothing, studied Northeast Native American websites, as well as the Historychannel.com visual mini videos.

Numerous books & videos were read and enjoyed. Other commercial videos were also used to enhance the learning.

Effectiveness:
The month-long unit was very successful. To meet the needs of each child, all modalities were used for instruction. Visual or “see” auditory or “say”, and tactile or “do” activities helped clarify the events in history for the second grade Pilgrims. The project was fun for the children and truly brought history to life.

Benefits:
The Pilgrim unit helped ensure that Thanksgiving will no longer just mean a “turkey dinner” and “a day away from school.” The second grade children now have new understanding of what it means to be thankful, of the importance of working together, and realizing that with hard work anything is possible.