Today we celebrated “Mayflower Day”!! Okay…so I made that up…but I thought that sounded pretty fitting for our day today 🙂 We started by reading a non-fiction book about the Mayflower. I can’t remember which one, but I checked it out from our school library and it was really good!! It was a great book to review Table of Contents also 🙂 Each “chapter” was only a page or two long. After each page, we stopped to jot. During our stop to jot time, the kids gave me a few facts they learned from that chapter. 
We learned a lot of really cool facts!! Did you know that the water was so unsafe to drink that everyone on the Mayflower…children included…drank beer?!?! Ummmm…yeah. That interesting tidbit of info was definitely in the book and you should’ve heard the conversations that transpired after reading that fun little fact 🙂 Wow. After brainstorming, I had the kids choose 5 facts to write about for their Mayflower books. Y’all. These books are DARLING. A few of the girls on our team have been making these “bag boats” for a few years and I LOVE them!!! They’re PERFECT for a little Mayflower fun!!
We compiled all their facts into this little book… 
I used pencils to hold up the sails…just incase you’re wondering 🙂 There were a couple of extra “pages” left in the book, so we filled them in with a thinking map & a survey/graph. We made a Mayflower brace map to show the parts of the whole…
And I also had the kids survey their classmates asking them whether or not they would have liked to travel on the Mayflower if they were pilgrims. Not surprisingly, they all said NO!!!! The kids graphed their classmates responses and wrote about their data as well. 
You can download the Mayflower brace map & graph HERE.
And check out these resources for MORE related activities and see what teachers are saying about using them in their classrooms!
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What a cute idea! Is there a special way to make the "bag boats" or do you just trace and cut the pages out and staple them all together?
You need three grocery bags to make one book…or two…depending on how long you want it to be. I had a template I used to cut my bags. You basically take a grocery bag and lay it horizontally. Round the edges and cut straight across and up the other side. Then cut the top of the bag to look like upper deck of the Mayflower. I took three bags and stapled them together. Does that make any sense at all?!?! HA!! It's easier to see a visual!!!
Sorry!! I stink at trying to articulate things sometimes!!!!
Makes perfect sense! Thanks for sharing!!! I will definately be making one of these for a sample for next year. 🙂
I love the visuals you create! They are so cute and informative! Do you type the kids ideas as they share?
This is so cute!
I am up at 2 a.m. playing with this. I am going to use lunch sized bags for the kids to make individual books. I am just shrinking everything to fit that. I can't get grocery bags here. No one will sell them to me anymore. Our grocery stores are such prizes. It's not like I don't spend a fortune there!!!
Love this idea! You are so great at providing visuals for your students! Do you type as they give you ideas or do you go back and type what you wrote?
I just posted a writing activity for Thanksgiving that I think you might like! http://www.whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com
I might just be obsessed with your blog. I love that you put your downloads and I have a google docs account, but a lot of times some parts of your documents don't show up when I print or I get a line that looks like a barcode. Am I doing something wrong or is there someway to change this? Thanks so much. Michelle http://www.fantasticfirstgrade.com
Michelle…what?! SO sad to hear that!! I have NO clue what that's about!! Let me check into it and see if there's something I can fix 🙂 Dang Google Docs! In the meantime, if there's something you need or want, just shoot me an email and I'll be happy to send the files to you via email 🙂
thefirstgradeparade@gmail.com
I used to get the same line when I printed from what comes up when you open the page. By clicking on the download bar at the top left, I don't get it anymore. Try that. IHope that helps.
I love your blog! You have the best ideas. We don't have any cool books about the Mayflower. Would you happen to have your facts saved on a file that you could send?
brantcc@bay.k12.fl.us
That happens to me too when I download the documents (I've done about all of them)- I get a weird black bar or nothing at all….like the turkeys with the addition facts on their belly! They didn't have anything on them when I printed them! Let me know what you find out! I would also LOVE the "good-bye" poem emailed to me if you can! gundersonrachelle@hotmail.com
Basically I am in love with your blog!!!!
I did these bag books in the small version. We had ordered some flat bags that were about 9 x 5 from Bags & Bows. I stapled 2 together and then cut the shape. I only had the kids tell me 4 facts about something from the Mayflower and then used the graph and the brace map. They were really cute!! Got great stuff. . .mostly about kids drinking beer. Not sure how that will go over in an LDS community.
It was a great experience and the kids did learn a lot. Thanks so much for the idea!!!
I am LOVING this Mayflower book! As always, I am so thankful for all your ideas. We will definitely be implementing many of them for our Thanksgiving unit. Thank you so much and thank you for sharing the brace map and graph printable.
Do you have the template saved to where you could email the information from the "stop to jot" facts about the Mayflower?
katyesecrist@gmail.com
Once again, thank you. 🙂 We ended up making this book together for Thanksgiving. I even made a few of my own printables to go inside the pages. You can check out the link, if you think you'd like to use any of them for your class next year. 🙂
http://gettinskooled.blogspot.com/2011/12/mayflower-day-printables.html
This is such a great idea! I am going to use this for reader's response to non-fiction books. THANKS for SHARING!
Thank you so much for this wonderful idea! I used this idea for one of my very first lessons during a practicum experience in a first grade classroom. Like Leslie, I also made a few of my own templates which I have posted here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mayflower-Fact-Book-773553
Thanks again!
HI CARA! I don't know if you'll see this … but if you do could you please tell us the title of the book you used for these activities? It sounds like a great resource!! Many thanks for all the wonderful ideas here and ALL OVER your awesome blog!!! Ana ana.mumaw@gmail.com
If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern sounds like the book mentioned.
I love this idea….do you have a pattern to create the books?