Mayflower Craft and Science Activity

We started talking about the story of Thanksgiving this week for our Thanksgiving theme. Each day we are learning a little more about the story and adding a few more beads to our story bracelets. Although it is a little advanced for my little ones, we have been enjoying and learning from the information in the Interactive Exploration of the First Thanksgiving. We also continue to sing our Thanksgiving songs.

GET A FULL WEEK OF THANKSGIVING THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE PRESCHOOL LESSON PLANS.

Mayflower Craft

Our first craft was this super easy Mayflower craft. I adapted the concept of egg carton pirate ships just a bit so we would be able to put them in water.

First the kids used brown paint to paint the inside of an empty applesauce cup. All we had to clean up were the paintbrushes, because the kids just squeezed a bit of brown paint right into the cup.

Then we glued trapezoids and rectangles made from card stock to two different sized craft sticks to create the sails.

When our paint was finally dry, we added a small amount of play dough to the bottom and used it to secure our sails. See! Super easy!

Science Investigation

It didn’t take long for the kids to ask when we were going to sail our ships, so we filled up the water table and prepared to set sail. My little scientists predicted that these boats were not going to float, so they decided to put Tinker’s boat in first. Hers didn’t have any paint, and we could make her a new one if we needed to.  Not quite sure the boats would float myself, I thought this was a good idea, and we were all a little relieved surprised when the boat didn’t sink.

Then we tested the other boats, and the kids were as excited to see that all of our mini-Mayflowers could float.

Remembering our talk about the long trip and the weather during the voyage, one of the kids said, “Hey! Let’s make it storm.” They spent a few minutes blowing on the boats and moving them across the water.  It didn’t take long for them to realize they had to blow a lot harder to move Tinker’s boat (the one without the sails) than they did to move their own boats. This gave us a great chance to talk about the function of sails.

How do you teach your kids about the Mayflower? What other ways do you incorporate science into teaching about Thanksgiving?

GET A FULL SET OF THANKSGIVING THEME ACTIVITIES

The 159-page Thanksgiving Lesson Plan Set includes hands-on activities and these additional printables:

1) Pumpkin Pie Letter Matching (in color and b/w)

2) Rhyming Turkey Game

3) Turkey Color Sorting Mats (in color and b/w)

4) Turkey Counting Mats 1-20 (in color and b/w)

5) Look at the Turkey Emergent Reader (3 variations)

6) How to Make a Pumpkin Pie Sequencing Cards (in color and b/w)

7) 0-35 Turkey Number Cards (4 variations)

8) Phoneme Segmentation Turkey Activity

9) Thanksgiving Taste Test Recording Sheet (in color and b/w)

10) Thanksgiving Picture-Word Cards (in color and b/w)

11) Thanksgiving Roll and Graph (2 variations, in color and b/w)

Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Hands-On Holidays eBook

Less stress, more connecting this holiday season? Yes, PLEASE!

From the arrival of fall to Halloween to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the last four months of the year can be a wonderful opportunity for making family memories and spending time together, but they can also be stressful as we try to collect ideas, recipes, and activities to try together.

Stephanie Morgan, founder of Modern Parents Messy Kids, a site that’s been voted Best Craft Blog in Parents Magazine and one of babble.com’s Top 50 Craft Mom Blogs, recently released a new eBook to help us have a little less stress and more time to connect with family this year.

Stephanie’s goal is to make it easier on all of us to enjoy the holidays with our kids. Hands-On Holidays is 100 pages full of her family’s very favorite ways to connect as a family over the holiday season. I love the convenience of having so many ideas in one place, and most of them are simple enough for even my toddler to participate in.

The book includes picture book suggestions, DIY decor, activities, and treats. Bonus sections also offer even more ideas to enjoy. Click here to view more details.