The Story of the Pilgrims begins...

Last week our class began reading about and learning the story of the Pilgrims.  Today each child made a small map with a Mayflower ship.  They're going to tell you tonight (or tomorrow if the map didn't make it home today) how the story of the Pilgrims began almost 400 years ago in England.  They'll be able to tell you how the King wanted the people of England to pray in his church and how not everyone wanted to do that.  Many wanted to pray in their own way.  They wanted to be separate from the King's church so many called them Separatists.  They held secret meetings and when the King found out...he put many in prison!

So they left for Holland and stayed for 12 years, but their children were becoming more Dutch than English and the English families wanted to keep their English customs and traditions.  So, they decided to come across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World.  They bought a boat called the Speedwell, but it was old and small.  They wanted another boat, but they had no more money.  So they made an agreement with some English businessmen who bought them a boat called the Mayflower in exchange for the Pilgrims sending back furs and lumber from the New World.

When the Pilgrims were finally ready with their supplies on board, both the Speedwell and the Mayflower took off.  But the Speedwell was leaky and they returned to England.  Some of the passengers boarded the Mayflower and some decided to stay back in England.  Finally, they were ready to leave for the New World.  The trip was very dangerous and many people were seasick.  There were no bathrooms (the class found the concept of chamber pots quite amusing!) and no way to bathe.  Partway through their journey, they encountered a very bad storm and a beam in the Mayflower cracked!  They were able to repair it and they journeyed on.  The food was very boring...they ate the same thing day after day...salt horse (NOT horse meat) and hardtack (a very hard and dry biscuit).  They couldn't run about and play.

At last, after 66 days, they spotted land!  They had finally reached the New World!  They'd been pushed off course during the storm and landed at the tip of what is now Cape Cod when they were originally headed for Virginia.  Because it was growing colder and winter was coming, they decided to stay.

Here's a short video of several students explaining the story in their own words!