- Played ‘Captain says’ (If it had been warmer out we would have done this on driveway and drawn a ship in chalk, but it was cold so we played inside & used masking tape to make a ship). You play by having the captain instruct the other sailors to walk/hop/run/skip/crawl to the: - Bow (front)
- Stern (back)
- Keel (bottom spine)
- Mainmast (middle mast)
- Mizzen sail (back sail)
- Crow's nest (lookout at top of mainmast)
- Rudder (in back of ship, used to steer)
- Helm (steering wheel)
- Fore sail (front sail)
- Anchor
- Mainsail (middle sail)
- Keel (bottom spine)
- Starboard side (right)
- Aft of the boat (back toward the stern)
Port side (left) - Amidship (middle)
- Hull (main part of the ship)
- Acted out Columbus asking the King & Queen of Spain to go, sailing, and landing in America
- Christopher’s name means christbearer – what does your name mean activity?
- Use the Draw, Write, Now book #2 to draw Columbus’ three caravel ship – Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. I think this series is great! It helps teach kids some basics of drawing and they can practice writing at the same time. Goofy was thrilled that drawing with Mommy was ‘school’ =-)
- Practiced addition and colored by number Columbus’ ships. (I love how Goofy used our Unifix Cubes to do the math problems – I was so proud!) - from Enchanted Learning
- The ship’s boy kept track of time with half-hour glass. We made our own similar device for keeping track of time. We used 2 funnels, cardstock (for opening on funnels), tape (we used packing tape), and sand. After finishing it we timed it & turns out we have a minute glass. Goofy thought it was great fun to make & has been enjoying telling me when a minute is up =-)
We talked about what they ate on the boat? Answer: dry biscuits, salted meat, cheese, chickpeas, honey, rice, almonds, onions, raisins. Because of the lack of fresh fruits & veggies the sailors ended up getting scurvy. Side note: in 1795 sailors took daily ration of lemon so they nicknames Limey. Goofy that it was cool that they had biscuits on board. To help him understand that the biscuits wouldn’t be fresh from the oven we made a biscuit and let it sit out for days. Now imagine what that would be like after 2 months!!
I intended to practice different basic knots, but we rain out of time.
Here are our favorite books about Columbus. Check them out from your local library or click to find on Amazon.
Other Explorers - There weren’t lots of books or activities about the following explorers, but I wanted to at least touch on these important explorers!
I used The Picture History of Great Explorers by Gillian Clements. This is a wonderful book to own. It gives one page of information about each major explorer from Ancient Explorers and Vikings to Armstrong and Earle. Each page is easy to read and filled with great information. There are several illustrations per page. I love the ease of use and chronological order.
- Vasco de Gama – established trade route for Portugal to Indies by sea going around Africa
- Amerigo Vespucci – discovered that America was indeed a new, separate continent.
If you are following along and would like to download the FREE lapbook / timeline click on the image below:
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