Category Archives: Library Lessons

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes: Happy Birthday, my Beth

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She was a perfect baby, and she had a perfect name. Chrysanthemum. When she was old enough to appreciate it, Chrysanthemum loved her name. And then she started school. “I’m named after my grandmother,” said Victoria. “You’re named after a flower.” Chrysanthemum wilted. Life at school didn’t improve. In fact, it got worse. See what happens in this charming book about kindness and accepting others.

Touring the Mayflower and Daily Life in Plymouth

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Scholastic has put together a nice little collection of online resourcesto help elementary school students learn about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and The First Thanksgiving.Voyage on the Mayflower has two parts for students to explore. The first part is an interactive map of the journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Students can click on placemarks on the map to read and hear about the journey. The second part of the Voyage on the Mayflower takes students “inside” the Mayflower to see and hear about the parts of the ship.

Daily Life is a comparison of the lifestyles of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag. Students can click through each aspect of daily life to see a comparison of housing, clothing, food, chores, school, and games.

Finally, Scholastic has partnered with Plimoth Plantation to produce three video tours of Plimoth Plantation, a Wampanoag homesite, and a Pilgrim homesite.

 

U.S. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. If you’re teaching lessons about The First Thanksgiving, the Plimoth Plantation website has some resources that you will want to check out.

You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving is an interactive exploration of the facts and myths associated with the story of the First Thanksgiving. Students can explore the facts and myths through the eyes of a Native American child or through the eyes of a female Pilgrim. Through the eyes of each character students discover the culture of giving thanks in the Native American and English cultures. My favorite part of the investigation is “The Path to 1621” in which students hear the perspectives of Native Americans and Pligrims about events prior to 1621.

Applications for Education
Plimoth Plantation has an extensive teaching guide that accompanies You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving. The teaching guide includes the use primary source documents in addition to the text in the interactive investigation. To make the activity accessible to as many classrooms as possible Plimoth Plantation allows you to download the files to run the activity locally. You can download the activity here (the link will start a zip file download).

 A Great Timeline for U.S. History Students
The American Revolution Center has a fantastic interactive timeline about the American Revolution. The timeline features an easily navigated combination of text and images. Click on any event in the timeline to view a short paragraph about that event. Click on an image of an artifact in the timeline and a you will see an enlarged image of that artifact. The page hosting the enlarged artifact image also hosts a description of the artifact and in some cases a video podcast about the artifact. It really is one of the best US History timelinesyou’ll find.