Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade Tidbits: Pilgrim Day in Photos

Wednesday was "Pilgrim Day" in our room! We had such a wonderful time learning about life in the past! We did tons of fun activities and art projects to help us learn. Below are some photos from our day! We will spend Monday-Tuesday of this week finishing up and reviewing our learning!

We began our study with a K-W-L and pilgrim craft the day before Pilgrim Day. The kids did not seem to know much about the first Thanksgiving {except for one of my brilliant girls, who knew the feast lasted for 3 days...}. I liked their wonders, though! The craft is from Caitlin Clabby and I am OBSESSED with it!!!

We also watched the Charlie Brown Mayflower video to learn more about what life was like on the Mayflower. It's included in the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving DVD {at least it is in the one that I have}. I whipped up a little writing page for the kids to tell if they would/would not ride on the Mayflower. Their answers were great!

Classic and portrays the information in a way young children can understand it.

On to Pilgrim Day! So I used to store my daily materials in those drawers, a pocket chart that hangs, and even folders, but over the years, I went to laying things out. I am someone who has to see everything or I will forget-very visual! I have an obsession with having the stuff for the day laid out, in the order that I am going to do it, on my back counter. The kids also love going to 'check the counter' each morning! I had everything prepped to the smallest detail for Pilgrim Day because any lost time on that day is insane!

Pilgrim games and November Daily Sentence Editing

Butter-making supplies and recipe cards for kids to take home

Hat and bonnet materials ready, chalkboards and chalk

We began our day by making our hats and bonnets. I've since included a direction page for the bonnets in my Pilgrim Day pack, so be sure to re-download! The hat is just free handed from a picture my teammate found.

Happy Pilgrim Day!

The girls were way more enthused about the hats than the boys!

The kids had great fun writing on chalkboards and using chalk! They said they would much rather use their dry erase slates! The chalk was "so dusty" and "got all over their hands."

We read a lot of books {book list included in my Pilgrim Day pack} and did some sorting activities.

We hunted and gathered for food around the classroom; always a hit.

We played a Pilgrim game of "naughts and crosses" aka tic-tac-toe! The kids loved this!

We worked on our daily sentence editing practice from my November Sentence Editing Pack {of course, today's had to be about the pilgrims!}. These are FANTASTIC practice for 1st-2nd graders and meet the CCSS requirements for language!

We ended our day making butter! It was awesome! It didn't take too many rounds of shaking and the kids were amazed at how the cream magically turned into a solid! My assessment was that in order to get a cracker, students had to tell me one fact they learned about pilgrims and life in the past. The facts they were recalling were fantastic! Everyone got to take home a little butter recipe card as a souvenir from the day!

We made and read our "Pilgrim Children" mini-book! It's loaded with facts about our learning! Great review.

On Monday, we will write about our experience.

Everything you have seen above is included in my Pilgrim Day Pack. If you'd like to check out these activities, click the cover below to snag one for your classroom! It's great fun!

Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to you! Can you guess my favorite Thanksgiving food? Leave a comment with guess and email to win this pack for f-r-e-e! First person to guess correctly wins!