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This is a fantastic resource for any unit on Pilgrims or Thanksgiving. The narrator, Sarah Morton, takes the reader through a typical day – from getting dressed in her many layers, to chores she does to help her family, school lessons, meals, and play time. Students learn vocabulary from the time as well as how different the lives of children were at this time.

Inference skills can play a key part in understanding this text. There are many words and situations that the reader can decipher the meaning of by using context and picture clues.

I wrote a strategic lesson for using inference with this text for one of my classes:
Download Inference Lesson for Sarah Morton’s Day

Download Inference Chart for Sarah Morton’s Day

Connecting is another important reading strategy to employ with this text. Students will be surprised at the hardships of Sarah Morton’s life, but they will also find many ways they are similar to Sarah. Further, if you are reading this as part of a unit on Pilgrims or Thanksgiving, they should make many connections to what they have already learned in this unit.

There is a companion to this book, Samuel Eaton’s Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy, which is in a similar format from a boy’s perspective. These are fantastic resources for getting kids to relate to the lives of Pilgrim children.