The Mayflower

Today we talked about the Mayflower.  Most of the kids already knew it was a ship. Some said the Native Americans were on it and others said pilgrims. We skimmed through facts from ...If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.  

We found out some pretty cool facts.  

*There were 102 Pilgrims on the ship (  that is close to how many Kindergartners we have)

*They could only take 1 chest filled with their belongings. If it didn't fit, they had to leave it.

We made a Mayflower and wrote something the pilgrims took with them. 

*They ate (what the sailors called) hardtack (hard biscuit) and salt horse (salted beef).  

I asked " Could you have survived by eating this on the Mayflower ?"   Most said yes so we decided...well I decided..they would try hardtack and salt horse. They were not thrilled about it.  They said, "Eeewww! What is it?  Do we really have to eat it?   It sounds gross? " 

Now of course I didn't tell them it was beef jerky and a roll. 

We then graphed our responses. 

Our mystery picture was so much fun this week.  We started our 100 chart. Usually my picture has something to do with the letter of the week.  I tricked them this week 😊

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/100-Chart-Mystery-Picture-Mayflower-962465

  

After such a fun week, I couldn't believe my little Auburn fan came in wearing his Auburn shirt.    I am trying my best to convert him!! 

 

50 Chart

I love the 50 chart mystery pictures.  It isn't the 100 chart(those will come soon) but it gives them the opportunity to explore building and recognizing numbers at a smaller scale.  This week we are studying the letter N, so our mystery picture was a nest.   I show the numbers on the board using magnetic place value manipulatives.   I build the number and they tell me what number I built. Then we decompose the number (if the number is 34 they say 30 and 4 more), tell if it is even or odd, and how many more they would need to get to their next ten. There are so manny a-ha moments during these activities. 

50 Chart

I am loving doing these with the kids on Fridays.   I call out numbers , the position in place value of a number, or decompose a number and the kids locate the number in their chart.  Each number or numbers or certain colors, when the finish, the "mystery number" is revealed!  This is great for number sense.   Each picture goes with our Saxon Phonics Letter of the Week.  Last week we created a pencil (I forgot to get a picture) and this week we created an apple with a silly worm coming out of it.  We will do these for a couple more weeks and then hopefully move to a 100 chart!!!! 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/50-Frame-apple-869629