Each day, our goal for the class is small, but meaningful. Today, I wanted my sprouts to understand why the Pilgrims set out for a new life, how they traveled here. That’s it. In kindergarten, the social studies concepts are taken in small steps.
When we began, I posed the question, “Does anybody know why we celebrate Thanksgiving?”
I got a few answers relating to feeling thankful and grateful, all valid, but nobody mentioned the Pilgrims, Native Americans or the Mayflower.
We read two books about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower. We talked about it. Finally, we made a Mayflower puppet and learned a song called ‘Where is the Mayflower?’ It’s simple and fun and we sang that song about a hundred times (maybe it was more like seven or eight times). They loved it. I loved it. We were learning!
Finally, before moving on to math, I asked the class, “So what was the name of the ship the Pilgrims sailed to America?”
Every hand shot up. Yay! They were listening and learning.
I called on Evelyn. She was one of my best listeners, surely she would say the name I wanted to hear and we’d move on…
“The Cauliflower!” She exclaimed with a grin, proud of her answer.
“Good try,” I said, deflating inside.
Someone did give the correct answer, but that was just a classic kindergarten moment. Needless to say, I won’t be having any cauliflower at my Thanksgiving dinner this year.
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5 comments:
what's the song? do you mind sharing :)
Not at all! Here it is:
Where is the Mayflower (Sung to the tune of Where is Thumbkin)
Where is the Mayflower?
Where is the Mayflower?
Here it is. (Point to the puppet)
Here it is. (Point to the puppet)
Sailing across the ocean (move puppet like it's sailing)
Sailing across the ocean (move puppet like it's sailing)
Long ago.
Long ago.
You might like this one, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gW7JJw9-tg
Too funny. Reminds me when we were studying America during "Freedom Week". We had a long conversation about the President's job and our famous past Presidents. As we left the classroom that afternoon to go home, one of my students saw the bulletin board across the hall and proudly announced, "hey, theres Abraham Lincoln and George Clooney!" Needless to say, my heart went a flutter.
Lol cauliflower!! That's cute. I always cringe at this time of year over making the costume for the feast at school where my kids are forced to wear my creation and people are left guessing if they are a pilgrim or and Indian. I have a few years break before child 3 goes through it.
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