Moving Beyond the Page-Thanksgiving unit

We have been using Moving Beyond the Page (MBTP) level 4-5 for our kindergarten year. It has been fun. It is more structured than Five in a Row (FIAR), and we have enjoyed it. I really like the creativity and flexibility of FIAR, though. We started to enjoy MBTP more when I let go a bit, and started adding some stuff, and making it more like our FIAR units.

Our Thanksgiving unit was so much fun! We read " Thanksgiving Is" by Gail Gibbons. We talked a lot about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. We watched the Learn Our History DVD about the first Thanksgiving and the Mayflower.

After watching the video, and talking about the Pilgrims, I gave Lily a dry erase marker, and had her mark the path that the Pilgrims took to come over from England.

After we talked about the first Thanksgiving, Lily ran upstairs to get her toys. She came down and recreated the first Thanksgiving feast, complete with a butterfly and alligator. :)

  We talked a lot about how the Native Americans helped the Pilgrims learn how to grow foods, including corn. We made some corn muffins to go with our dinner that night.

After dinner, we watched Pocahontas, and had another corn product as a snack: Popcorn! Lily LOVED the movie, and talked about Pocahontas for the rest of the week. She even wanted to wear her hair down, because it was "Pocahontas hair."

We learned a lot about turkeys this week. Lily was actually pretty interested in learning about them. She made a "Fact turkey", where all the feathers are actual facts that she learned about turkeys.

She also made a hand print turkey. I love hand print art. If I never saved any of her other art work, (which I do), I would save her hand print art. She really enjoyed making it, and kept saying "This is fun!"

After learning about turkeys, we found an episode of the Wild Kratts to watch. This one was about wild turkeys. Lily loves the Wild Kratts series. She settled down to watch it on the Ipad.

We talked about the Mayflower, and how the Pilgrims didn't have a smooth voyage while coming over here. Lily made a Mayflower out of a butter tub, and we put some water in a bin. I added some blue to it. Lily spent some time making wind and waves, and seeing how that affected the way the Mayflower sailed.

We have the Draw Write Now series of books, and I try to add one of those in whenever it relates to whatever we are studying. Lily really dislikes writing/drawing, so I try to make it fun for her. She is getting SO much better with her drawing/coloring this year. I am so pleased with her progress! I found a turkey for her to try to draw.

 Great job, Lily!

We discussed being thankful for the things that we have. I think this topic went a little over her head. She was telling me she was thankful for reading her Rudolph the Reindeer book. I had to explain that we can be thankful for things that are not material things, too-like family and friends. We made a cornucopia and she made a list of things she is thankful for. Each fruit or veggie has something she is thankful for on it.

 It's hard to see, but she did finally add her family to things she was thankful for! Lol-I was starting to wonder. :)

We talked about Abraham Lincoln, and how he was the president that declared the last Thursday of November to be a National holiday-Thanksgiving! Lily made an Abraham Lincoln mask.

 We talked about how Abraham Lincoln was poor as a child, and how he lived in a log cabin. Of course, we had to build a log cabin with our Lincoln Logs.

 Great job, Lily!

We did a little bit of Thanksgiving baking-we made some pumpkin muffins.  Lily had one for breakfast the next morning, and gave them a thumbs up!

We did a little feather counting for our math.

The best part of our week, was a trip to the Jamestown Settlement. During our discussion of Pocahontas, I told Lily that she used to live in Virginia. Lily said she wished she could see where Pocahontas had lived. Well, we can! The Jamestown settlement has a recreation of a Powhatan Village, and it is within driving distance. The weather was good that weekend, so, off we went! We learned a LOT about Pocahontas and the Powhatan way of life. Lily absolutely loved this trip, and said she would like to go back sometime.

Arriving at the settlement. Lily refused to say "cheese" for pictures on this trip-it was "Mayflower" and "Pocahontas."

The entrance to the Powhatan village.

Learning how the Powhatan Indians made their clothing.

 The houses that they Powhatan Indians lived in.

 There were animal furs/skins everywhere.

Lily was scraping the fur off of this deer skin-this is how the Powhatan Indians made clothing.

Grinding some corn.

Lily wanted to know how they made the baskets that she was seeing everywhere. This lady was in the process of making one.

Practicing her marksmanship! (I love her face in this picture)   There were hoops hanging from a branch, and an "arrow" made of a corn cob and a feather.

 At the settlement, we got a Powhatan Indians TOOB. We put in in a bin with some sand, and Lily played with that for a long time. She loves sensory bins.

This was an awesome week! Lily learned lots, and is having a blast with her schooling this year. Next week, we are taking a break from MBTP, and doing a FIAR book-Cranberry Thanksgiving.