Hands-on learning is an integral component in early childhood education.

The manipulation and experimenting of materials provide a reference of learned concepts, and enables young children to construct meaningful experiences that aid their ability to commit new information to memory.

For this activity, your little one learned about shipbuilding in colonial America. To tie this in to our Thanksgiving theme, we discussed how the pilgrims sailed to the United States on a boat called the Mayflower.

They also learned that they were at sea for sixty-six days and landed at Plymouth Rock in the year 1620.

Using styrofoam blocks, blocks, small boxes, and “sails”, we created our own version of the Mayflower!

We then added small people as our pilgrims to supplement our play.