Learning about something is not the same as experiencing and understanding it. So our cleaver 1st grade teachers in conjunction with the library designed centers to let kids see what it would feel like to live in the 1600s. First we turned out the lights and used candles (the oil lamp seemed a bit too flammable for comfort). We started the morning in the garden harvesting root vegetables. Back inside they learned to clean them, write with a real quill pen, sew using cards and shoelaces, take pop corn off the cob and prepare it for popping, and make butter. They also got to go on a virtual field trip to Plimouth Plantation.
The Tennessee Agricuture Museum has a great box filled with things that would have been used in colonial America and the kids had an opportunity to handle them and ask questions. After lunch the students got to sample the feast we made from their harvest that morning. These children ate what I imagine was their first beets, and they declared them good. We added Indian pudding made from cornmeal and molasses, apples, and homemade bread on which they liberally spread the butter they made. Some liked the butter so much that they asked if they could just eat the butter!We started the meal with a prayer that the pilgrims might have used and a chorus of "We Gather Together." It was a joyfilled day and one that the children will likely not forget. This kind of learning is hard to measure and even more difficult to understand! You can experience some of the things they did by using our Live like Pilgrim Page.
