Pilgrim Reports

This week Miss Hamner taught the children to write reports about the Mayflower voyage.  After studying life on the Mayflower for the 66 days the Pilgrims traveled, each child created a Mayflower picture and then wrote about the voyage.  They had learned how difficult the trip was due to overcrowding, storms and boredom.  The food supply was tight and there wasn't much variety in what they could bring.  There wasn't much to do or see below deck where the Pilgrims spent most of the trip.  Children were asked to depict the stormy seas and the wild skies.  The look was layered by designing and cutting out the ship first, the waves on separate paper, and finally the background.  The pieces were all glued together to create the final artwork.  The following are some samples of the artful Mayflowers created by children:

Here are some examples of the written reports. The children were provided with sentence frames ("The voyage was difficult because...") and they needed to provide details and evidence to support their details. It was only their second attempt at writing reports this year and I think they look great!