What an awesome opportunity to learn about the 1600's and Colonial times. We started by reading about the voyage of the Mayflower, and discussed what life may have been like on the voyage. My youngest daughter was saddened by the thought of people not being able to wonder about the ship on their own, but instead having to stay below. I am sure it sunk in that this was probably due to safety mostly. Ha! I said sunk. Not on purpose though.
Then we went on to study about the ship itself. We learned about the different ropes and sales, and the different parts of the ship and what they were called. My children were certain that they would never have survived on such a tiny ship with so many people. They have never been on a sale boat, or any other type of boat that they can remember. Perhaps that is a side activity we can research for later.
Next we talked about fashion which is a subject we as females can talk a lot about. We discussed the clothes, and found pictures of what an outfit would have looked like. We discussed what it must have been like to always be covered from neck to toe with layers of fabric all of the time. I don't know about you, but I am pretty sure I would have been miserable. I like my shorts and t-shirts, although, I do live in the desert. We ended the study of clothes with drawings of a colonial man and woman's outfit. I was blown away with the free hand drawings the girls came up with. I will post them later.
On to the next part of the study. We talked living conditions. This was a great lesson for the girls about space and stuff. My girls realized that they would go bonkers in a small 16 x 20 cabin with nothing to do other than sew and cook. However, we talked about how this was the norm for women, and that they would not have known the difference back then. My oldest realized that they were blessed with lots of stuff. Stuff like clothes and the convenience of food variety, an indoor bathroom, and many other modern items. Something she is now grateful for. This is a huge lesson and one I'm glad she learned. In the end we built log cabins and used what we could find outside to make them look authentic. More pics for later!
Next we went off the deep end a bit and built a turkey. Why? Because we could. We used Styrofoam to build the body, and colored sticks to build the feathers. It was simple, but effective. It turned out well and gave us a break from the seriousness of the study. Again, pictures later.
The study took a turn towards food finally. It had to as we had just built a turkey! We talked about the difference between what we eat today for Thanksgiving, and what was eaten back in the 1600s. "No cherry pie!?" Nope. "Awe, they were missing out!" This from my 11 year old. We proceeded to make a menu with breakfast, dinner, and supper. (This ignited a long discussion on why the word lunch was not on the list.) And there was definitely no cherry pie on the menu. No pie but possum or squirrel which grossed my girls out to think about eating. Yummy!
We decided to make some butter which my girls had never done before. Boy were they in for a treat! We took a plastic container, placed a cup of heavy whipping cream in it, plopped in 4 very well washed marbles, and closed the lid. Then the fun really began when the shaking commenced! Trying to keep it going for almost 27 minutes was not so bad with three of us, however, it did work out the arms a bit more than planned. Yet, 27 minutes and Wha-La!! Butter! They were amazed and anxious to taste it. So we broke out the french bread and enjoyed a little.
As it is Thanksgiving Day today, I will have to take a break and continue with cooking and being thankful for all we are blessed with. But there is more to share about our study, and I will work on it later. For now, have a super blessed day! And make sure you share what and maybe who you are thankful for.
