Mayflower On Our Street

Using some of Janel's great links for the Mayflower, on the math worksheet I found dimensions of the Mayflower - it was 90 feet long and 26 feet wide.  First we started in our driveway with a 25 foot measuring tape, sidewalk chalk and cones.

Our driveway was long enough just not wide enough.

Next stop: the street.  He's writing 26 - I was trying to get in a bit of handwriting, does chalk count?

Below he's outlining the bow of the ship.

And little sister?  She was happy playing in the mulch of one of my potted jalapenos.

After tracing an outline of the ship, we talked about how many people were on the boat (102 edit: 128, counting the crew) and where  or how those people would sleep.  I traced a "bed" for him. K'nex in the pants - optional.

We duplicated this approximately 10 times across the street, with hopes of making a 10x10 matrix.  Quickly we realized that the Pilgrims' beds were smaller that what we were drawing (or there's another sleeping configuration that we'll investigate later today).

And Sister moved from potted plant to pulling weeds.

-Julie

Mayflower cross-section credit

from MayflowerHistory.com: The Gun Deck, sometimes referred to by the Pilgrims as "betwixt the decks" or the "tween deck," is where the Pilgrims lived for most of the voyage.  They occasionally ventured to the upper deck, especially during calmer weather when they would be less likely to get in the way of the seamen and there was less danger of being swept overboard.  The gun deck had about four gun ports on either side of the ship for cannon.  Even though the Mayflower was a merchant ship, it needed to be able to defend itself from pirates, and needed to be prepared for the possibility of conscription (when England was at war, the King or Queen could turn merchant ships into military vessels.)  The height of the gun deck was around five and a half feet.