Last weekend, we took a ride to Plymouth, MA, not too far from where I grew up. We visited Plimoth Plantation, a trip I highly recommend for any family. The actors there can accurately describe the life in the time of 1627, and are open to questions from everyone- especially little kids!
During Montessori Training (forever ago, it feels!) I did a unit study on a local Native American Tribe, the Wampanoag. Below you'll see photos of recreated homes of both the English Settlers and Wampanoag. Also, feel free to use the definition cards pasted below in your classroom or home school. The lesson for Practical Life, Tweezing Corn is below as well. Happy Thanksgiving from the place that started it all!!!
 |
| A rare photo of Montessori Parents (we are always behind a camera), Brian and I in the Wampanoag Village |
 |
| Wampanoag Children's Toys |
 |
| Wampanoag actor tells us that they only eat meals the size of their fists, 7x a day! |
 |
| The girls enjoying a fire in the longhouse |
 |
| Sarah testing out a Mishoon, a boat made from a tree, burned by fire, scraped into shape by shells. |
 |
| An English Settler's home interior, this house had SEVEN children! |
 |
| English Settler Village, Plimoth Plantation |
 |
| Pulling corn off the cob |
 |
| Dolls in the English village |
 |
| Sarah in the museum's child room, playing Pilgrim |
 |
| Pilgrim Dress Up |
 |
| Cooking on the child sized Mayflower |
 |
| Plimouth Rock |
 |
| Experimenting with pulleys |
 |
| The Mayflower II interior |
 |
| The Mayflower II masts |
 |
| Surveying the water from Mayflower II Wampanoag definitions: simply print, and mount on cards and laminate. If you are interested in more Wampanoag work, comment with your email and I'll share more. Enjoy!
A Wetu
is a Wampanoag home for one family.
Wampum is
what the Wampanoag used for money. It is
made from seashells.
A Mishoon is a boat that the Wampanoag carved out of
tree trunks.
During the winter, the Wampanoag
lived with several other families inside a longhouse.
The Wampanoag used animal skins for clothing.
The Wampanoag used a roaster to cook their meals outside.
The Wampanoag had to cook inside the wetu to make meals when weather
was bad.
NAME OF ACTIVITY: Tweezing
Corn on the Cob
AREA
GENERAL: Practical
Life
SPECIFIC: Physical
Skills- Squeezing
MATERIALS: Basket,
Native American corn on the cob, bowl, tweezers, vase for tweezers
AIMS
DIRECT: Coordination,
Concentration, Independence, Order
INDIRECT: To build
fine motor skills and strength through squeezing.
PREPARATION:
Squeezing activities with a larger tool
AGE: First year
Montessori student
PRESENTATION OF THE LESSON:
 Grasp
corn with dominant hand, and transfer to sub-dominant hand Pick
up tweezers with dominant hand, and squeeze them to test the difficulty of the
tweezers Starting
with the tip of the cob, choose one piece of corn to take off Tweeze
the piece of corn until it comes or falls off Place
in jar If
corn falls out of tweezers, be sure that it ends up in the jar Repeat
process until satisfied, or the corn is all off If
there is some corn left, place into basket for the next friend If
all of the corn is gone, replace it with another full cob Return
tweezers to vase Be
sure that all pieces of corn are in jar If
the bowl is full, pour it into the glass collecting jar on the nature shelf Return
material to shelf
WORK OF THE TEACHER
POINTS OF EMPHASIS:
Capturing
the corn with the tweezers Listen
to the sound of the corn falling into the ceramic jar Grip
on tweezers Opening
and closing tweezers
LANGUAGE:
Tweezers Native
American Corn Corn
on the cob Pinch
POINTS OF INTEREST:
Attractive
materials Producing
a jar full of corn Sounds
of corn Tweezers
WORK OF THE CHILD
POINTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
Tweezers
gets things off/out All
corn comes off a cob
CONTROL OF ERROR:
Tweezers
can only hold one corn piece at a time Spilled
corn, or corn that isn’t coming off
VARIATIONS:
Using
a different color/type of corn on the cob
EXTENSIONS:
Using
the corn they tweezed for a pouring activity Sorting
the different colors of the corn into different jars |
No comments:
Post a Comment