Dead Fish ...

We read Young Squanto and talked about all the ways Squanto helped the Pilgrims. 

 

One of the ways he helped them was showing them how to plant corn seeds with a dead fish to make the soil rich. So we decided to try it. We planted a corn seed (yellow M&M) with a dead fish (Swedish fish) in dirt (chocolate pudding). 

We had to make sure the seed and fish were deep in the soil. 

Our hands got really dirty so we all went to the restroom to wash our hands. (Some of us even licked the dirt off our hands!)

Then when we came back....CORN HAD GROWN!!! It was amazing! 

Hardtack and Salthorse

Hardtack and Salthorse...sounds gross, right?! 

The pilgrims had hardtack and salt horse to eat on the Mayflower. Hardtack was bread that ended up very stale and salthorse was salted meat.  

Could we have survived on the Mayflower eating salthorse and hardtack?  There is only one way to find out...try it! 

We tried hardtack (a roll) and salthorse (beef jersey) very reluctantly. 

Here are our results! 

Building the Mayflower

We were able to work with our groups to design and construct our version of the Mayflower. Then we tested our ship to see how many pilgrims (bear counters) our boat could carry before it sank. 

We drew out our ship and made a prediction before we started. 

The Popsicle stocks were "seats" for their pilgrims. 😊

Over 100 pilgrims made this voyage! 

This group's boat instantly sank so they went back to their table an re engineered their boat. They said they realized it needed aides to help keep the water out. Good thinking guys! 

1st attempt 

2nd attempt 

These guys had some great thinking. No water would get in but it was too small to hold a lot of pilgrims. 

Literacy Stations

We love our new literacy stations! 

Station 1: letter of the week book 

Each week we read our letter of the week book and complete different activities with Mrs Amos. 

Station 2: Listening Station 

Station 3: computers 

Station 4: sticker story 

Station 5:  Building Words 

Students  choose a card and then build the word. 

Station 6: Computer 

Station 7; matching Pictires to words 

Mrs. Amos' Birthday

Thank you to everyone who made a card or sent a girlfriend for Mrs. Amos. She had a great day and was so surprised! 

Pumpkins!

We explored pumpkins today. We measured them, counted their lines and the seeds and even checked if it would sink or float. 

Then we had our pumpkin tasting. We tried pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin ice cream, and pumpkin butter. 

I love apple butter so when I saw pumpkin butter a few years ago I decided to add it to my yearly pumpkin tasting. 

(Yes, I had to help him try it this one )

Who loves ice cream?!  I do...they do...but will they love pumpkin flavored ice cream? 

Pumpkin Pie! We mixed vanilla pudding, spices, pumpkin, and milk in a ziplock bag.  Everyone got to squeeze the bag to help it mix and then I piped it out onto a gram cracker.  Yummy!