Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 5: Children of the Mayflower
Kids • 30 min • 1 season, 32 episodes
Episode synopsis
This episode introduces young viewers to the children who traveled aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Through simple narration and reenactments, it explores what life was like for these young passengers—their daily routines, the hardships of the voyage, and the hopes their families carried to the New World. The program highlights how the experiences of these children shaped the early days of Plymouth Colony, offering a relatable and human perspective on one of America’s most iconic journeys.
About Stories of America
The interconnectedness of all things is a fundamental part of reading motivation projects. Although GPN's Reading Rainbow claims to have invented that idea, Stories of America with host Ann McGregor got there first. It was 1976, America's bicentennial year, and WVIZ-TV of Cleveland wanted something more out of a series aimed at delivering American history, They decided to combine history with reading. The result was Stories of America. Hosting was the familiar face of Ann McGregor, who had enlivened Picture Book Park and Tilson's Bookshop some two years earlier. Stories of America resembled more of a story reading than a history lesson, but it also introduced other elements that became standard Reading Rainbow procedure. There were occasional film sequences, dramatizations, and even an animation. All told, the 32-part Stories of America series ran some 14 years on WVIZ-TV. The station brought the shows back in 1998, and it would be the only WVIZ instructional telev