Class Notes

This week Middle Elementary students went on a virtual field trip to Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  An interviewer from Scholastic spoke to the curator of the Plimoth Plantation living-museum, a current member of the Wampanoag tribe, a Wampanoag warrior from 1620, and two English settlers from Plimoth 1620.   We learned interesting facts about what day-to-day life was like for the settlers and the Wampanoag tribe, the famous positive relationship the two cultures shared, and the bountiful harvest of 1621 that led to the three-day thanksgiving celebration.  

Favorite facts the students learned included:

• In the 1600s, there were no spelling rules.
• When the Pilgrims arrived, they had to live on the ship for many months while their homes were being built. 
• The Wampanoag people and the Pilgrim settlers had a hard time communicating, so they were scared of each other.  Instead of having a war, they chose to have a treaty.  
• The Native American who helped the Pilgrims was named "Tisquantum".
• The Pilgrim children had to sleep on mattresses on the floor! 
• Children from both the Wampanoag and Pilgrim settlements had some toys a lot like ours - dolls, marbles, board games, and toy versions of grown-up tools.  
• The first Thanksgiving lasted for 3 whole days!  There was a huge feast and sporting competitions.  There were 50 Pilgrims and about 90 Wampanoag in attendance.