A Taste of Pilgrim Life at McDonald Elementary

The crisp fall air had some children longingly glancing at the warm embrace of the heated McDonald Elementary building Monday afternoon, but there was work to do before they could escape the chilly air. Besides, the 40-degree weather added an extra dimension of authenticity to the day's re-enactment of pilgrim life.

"Just remember," said Joe Pisacano, "they did not have a heated building to run to when it got too cold. They were out there all day long."

Pisacano was in the middle of giving his introductory speech to McDonald's annual Thanksgiving re-creation of colonial life. It's the 14th year that the school's social studies department organized such an event, and the first held at the new school.

"I got into re-enactments after speaking with one of my student's mother, who was really into it," said Pisacano. "I did them for five years before she said I was ready to try it on my own."

The popular lesson features five separate stations focusing on certain aspects of the pilgrim lifestyle, beginning with Pisacano's open hearth. As a boiling pot hung over an open flame, Pisacano had students churning butter and mixing up a batter for bannock cakes, an unleavened bread fried on a pan over hot coals.

The other stations included a candle-making session, making pilgrim clothes with construction paper, basket-weaving and a lesson on the multiple medicinal uses for herbs. The mock encampment brought a close to the month-long study of the book Eating the Plates: a Book of Pilgrim Manners by Lucille Recht Penner and a peak into the upcming unit on the settlements of Plymouth, Jamestown, Roanoke and the early colonists.