Primary Sources in Minecraft Projects: Your Own Pictures

One of our first steps as we started this project was to take a look at what resources were available to us. Luckily my youngest son and I had just visited Plimoth Plantation at the beginning of November. It was a grey, dreary, wintry day but it really set a dramatic tone for the experience! So our first primary sources were pictures that we took of the area.

The buildings were especially interesting, the high pitched roofs and the low interior ceilings. The sharp contrast between the elaborate chests and dressers and the spartan decor of the rest of the home was a shock to students when they compare colonial life to their homes of today.

Every home had its own garden, most often in raised beds fertilized by the manure of the animals living in stick barns next door. The difference between the thatched roofs of human inhabited dwellings versus the plank roofs of the animal enclosures was also striking.

In retrospect I wish I had taken more pictures of the spaces but at the time I felt it was more important to be present in the experience. This does give me yet another reason to return to Plimoth Plantation when there is more time to explore, ask questions of the character actors portraying Colonials, and to capture more specific imagery for this endeavor.