I used the V V W A organizer above as a foundation for my vocabulary lesson plan about the first Thanksgiving.Even though I teach primary education, the students are always interested in learning a bit of history and understanding how our holidays came about.To me, any study of the Pilgrims begins with an important word: "separatist."I chose this word because it is essential to making sense of why the Pilgrims left England in the first place. The students were entranced by the story, and the very idea of a group of people separating themselves from something was interesting to them. The idea of separating from a church is foreign to many of my students, but they easily connected to the idea of leaving something behind. They wrote their own definition of what a separatist is, drew it, and made a personal connection.Do my 7 year olds remember this word now? You better believe it.(It probably also helped that I used Barbie dolls with detachable heads to show what could happen to the separatists if they didn't leave England and flee to Holland. Hey, whatever it takes, right?)