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Creative Teaching Ideas for

CARRY ON, MR. BOWDITCH

by Jean Lee Latham (1955)


ON THIS PAGE: LitWits hands-on activity ideas and instructions, teaching topics, learning links, and more. Scroll on!

Printables for purchase

About the story

 Carry On, Mr. Bowditch  is an award-winning true story of diligence, perseverance, and courage. It tells “the inspirational story of a bright young boy who seems to have all his dreams dashed as he grows up. But by ‘sailing by the ash breeze’ and pursuing his intellectual passions whenever he has a spare moment, he becomes one of the most famous marine navigation experts of all time — and saves countless lives as a result of his work.”  (That's from a Goodreads review by a modern Nathaniel).  

There’s so much to learn from this seafaring tale of early Salem: science, character, writing, vocabulary, and so much more! But this is no dry textbook — Mr. Bowditch’s well-lived life makes a gripping, inspiring story.

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Hands-on Fun

Making a plan . . .


There are many ideas in this Hands-on Fun section—don't feel you have to do them all! Go with whatever works best for you and your kids. If you want to focus on a particular teaching point, our Takeaway Topics section can help you narrow down the activity options. And you can enhance discussions during any activity with audiovisual aids from Learning Links or story objects from Prop Ideas.

In our workshops, we do all the activities on this page, in order of the story's narrative arc. You might find our narrative arc worksheet helpful for sequencing your activities, teaching the important concept of the arc, and helping kids learn how Jean Lee Latham built Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.
Narrative arc worksheet & other printables
Fun activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops

Polaris

A LitWits activity

Not long before Nat loses his mother, she takes him for a walk to look at the night sky, and to show him how to find the North Star (Polaris).  It's a memory that sustains Nat his whole life, as he looks to the skies to navigate ships--and life.

This project honors Nat's journey as a man, as a new navigator, and as a seafaring captain. In every capacity, no matter how stormy things got, he kept his eyes on, he kept his eye on the North Star for guidance.

DIRECTIONS

  1. Use the Polaris template to cut a square from the black cardstock.

  2. Lay down torn map strips on the black cardstock, beginning about 1/3 from the bottom and working down so the "waves" overlap.

  3. Cut out the Putnam (ship) and glue it in a trough.

  4. Glue the quote at the bottom.

  5. Using the constellation template, poke holes through each star.

  6. Glue "stars" to each pinpoint.

Mat the whole thing on a bigger piece of cardstock in another color.

SUPPLIES

Templates, waves & other printables

Compass Rose

A LitWits activity

This story is awash with water, and packed with maritime instrumentation, so after introducing the basics of the compass rose, we painted one in watercolor.

But a compass is more than an instrument in this story; it’s a multi-dimensional metaphor as well.  This compass project honors Mr. Bowditch’s navigational skills, his moral compass, his ability to follow and issue directions, and the direction he took his career.

While the kids painted, we listened to some early maritime music, and talked about the directions Nat  followed, not just according to the stars but according to his inner compass.

SUPPLIES


DIRECTIONS

  • Cut compass rose pattern out of template or use precut stencil
  • Lay the stencil over ivory card stock, tape securely, and paint inside cut out shapes using oceanic shades of watercolor.
Compass rose template & other printables
Fun activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops

Elemental Compass

A LitWits activity

Can you imagine being out on the Atlantic without a GPS or other computerized systems — relying mostly on the stars and a compass?  A compass is essential in this story — and, internally speaking, throughout life. Mr. Bowditch clearly had an accurate one that helped him stay focused throughout each and every storm, so we made our own.

This activity gave us the opportunity to talk about the history of navigation and its tools, and the science of magnetism.  (Did you know the first compass was used by the Chinese 5000 years ago as a weapon of war? And that a neutron star has the most magnetic power in the universe? We had no idea!)

SUPPLIES



DIRECTIONS

  1.  Fill a cup with water.
  2. Magnetize the needle by rubbing it 40-50 times in one direction with a piece of magnetite or a magnet.   (After you've used it to magnetize the needle, keep the magnet away from the compass. As you will be able to tell with a little experimenting, it will greatly affect the direction of the needle.)
  3. Put the needle between two adhesive cork dots, sticky sides facing each other, like a needle sandwich. 
  4. Float the needle in a cup of water; it will align in a north-south direction.
  5. Confirm true north with a “real” compass--we gave one to each of our students as a keepsake.
  6. Cut the center from the compass template and set it on top of the cup. Align it with true north according to the needle.

For all the fascinating facts we delivered, the kids were by far the most enthralled with “making” the needle move without touching it — and understanding, by doing, why that happens.
Compass template & other printables
Fun activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops

Log Book

A LitWits project

Acknowledging where you’ve been is just as important as knowing where you’re going!  To get into Mr. Bowditch’s (deck) shoes and track our own journeys, we made our own log books, splashed by the salty sea. This project is as simple as it looks! Before beginning, we read Sam Smith's chat with Nat (in Chapter 6) about the origins of logs, knots, and logbooks.

SUPPLIES

  • table salt (to sprinkle on the wet paint)
  • brown notebooks (8.3x5.5)
  • the “log” template (in our printables), printed on white paper trimmed to fit
  • waterproof pen to handwrite child's name
  • We also gave the kids a little packet of sand, because in the story, that's what the sailors used to dry their quill ink. 
Template & other printables

Gloomy Gus

A LitWits activity

“Why would you want to do thaaat? You’ll never maaaaake it!”

Ugh, who likes a naysayer?  If Mr. Bowditch had listened to Ben Meeker’s downerism, he never would have gotten off the dock.

In the ever-persevering Nate Bowditch we have a stellar (as in star-following) example of what can be accomplished with the right attitude, even against all odds,  On the other hand, the scowling, negative Ben Meeker shows us how not to be, not if we want to succeed — or have any friends!

We brought this point home by having the kids “act out” Ben and Nate, following prompts. They could really feel the value of positive attitudes and perseverance. It sure feels good to know we can hold steady in a squall!
Prompts & other printables

The Bowline

There's no such thing as a sailor--let alone a ship's captain--who doesn't know the ropes:

One day an errand took [Nat] to a long building called a ropewalk. He watched the ropemakers walking backwards as they twisted the fibers into yarn, the yarn into strands, and the strands into rope. The ropemakers were proud of their work. ''Most important thing on a ship/' they said. "You can't sail a ship without cordage!"

Sure enough:  That night Nat started a notebook on everything about rope.  - Ch. 7

We're betting Nat learned how to tie all the knots--and the most basic of all is a bowline (pronounced bo-lun).  So we gave each of our kids a short length of soft cotton rope, and had them learn that critical knot from this eastern seaboard sailor.
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

BookBites

Sailor Remedies

A LitWits activity

BookBites is the part of our literary experience when we get to “taste the story.”  We choose a food right out of the book, and it has to meet at least one criterion:

  • it’s important to a plot point
  • it has thematic significance
  • it’s unfamiliar for reasons of culture, era, or location
 
We chose standard fare for sailors:  hard tack (pilot bread) and salted beef (jerky), with dried oranges to stave off scurvy--but we bought it from Ropes & Hodges, where Nat was apprenticed.

Well, not really, but the kids bought it. :)  If you'd  like these fun R&H labels we made, they're in our printables.


(As an option, you can make your own hard tack.)

While our crew ate (mostly gnawed), we played colonial-era music and showed book-related images and videos from our Learning Links (on this page, below).
Labels & other printables

Printables previews

The worksheets and printables used for our activities are sold as a complete set.

Fun activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR. BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops
Fun activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR. BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops

Common Core State Standards Alignment for the comprehensive use of our teaching ideas and materials is also included for grades 3, 4, 5 and 6. 

DETAILS

The LitWits Kit

Activity printables and worksheets for teaching CARRY ON MR BOWDITCH by Jean Lee Latham - LitWits Workshops

Pack up for the field trip!

A LitWits Kit is a bag or box of supplies you pack up and give to each child right before you begin your "field trip" through the story.  You might be doing one-off projects as you read through the book together, or you might do everything in this guide from top to bottom after the book has been read. However you explore this book in LitWitty ways, kids love the anticipation of opening their kit.

If you'd like to build LitWits Kits for your child/ren, you could easily arrange the items for your chosen activities in a bag, basket, or story-relevant container.  Honestly, it's just as much fun to create a kit as it is to open one!

To make it all the more fun, our printables for many books include special packaging.  For this book, we created custom labels for BookBites (our story snack). We even found a 1796 page of the Salem Gazette with an ad for a runaway indentured servant, just like the ad Nat's sister showed him. We printed it on two sides and crumpled it up for packaging--the kids loved searching for the ad that was "straight from the story."  

Below you'll see the contents of our latest LitWits Kit for this book. We didn't do the Compass Rose project this time, so those parts aren't pictured here.

Labels, packaging, & other printables

Takeaway Topics

Why we chose this book for a "field trip"
Mr. Bowditch stands for everything we believe in, but have such a hard time actually doing:  staying the course no matter the obstacles, standing tall no matter the losses, solving problems no matter the complexity--and, while doing all that staying/standing/solving, he learned difficult math and multiple languages, and  he did it by teaching himself!  and  he did it while working full time, with no schooling!  and  he was just a KID!  

You know that mix of admiration and shame you feel when someone half your age has done twice as much with none of your advantages? (There's a math problem for you, Mr. Bowditch.)  And who needs shame? All the more reason to get this story into kids while they're young! So we chose it for  one of our experiential workshops.  
 
This book is packed with great takeaway topics, which we're sharing below. In our workshops, we did our best to make these teaching points tangible, meaningful, and memorable in the kids' hands. It's amazing how much kids can learn while they're "just" having fun!  

Happy teaching,
Becky & Jenny

Takeaway 1

Directions

There are multiple “directional” messages in Nat’s story:  the importance of establishing clear  directions, of going in the right  direction, of following  directions, and of finding one’s own  direction. Kids don’t need to comprehend the details of navigation to understand that accurate directions are critical to success, if not survival. When we asked our kids to identify a prop that could represent this story, one of our students pointed to the lantern and said “we need light to show us the way.”  WOW! See what brilliance your own kids will shine on the subject!

Hands-on connections in this guide: Polaris project, compass rose art, compass experiment, log book project, creative writing and setting worksheets,; sensory props sensory props that connote guidance such as the barometer, compass, spyglass, lantern, slate, and textbooks; creative writing handout.
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

Takeaway 2

Attitude

No matter what happens, Nat manages to keep himself from getting discouraged.  He's just as human as the rest of us--he feels sadness and anxiety and frustration like anyone else--so how does he cope with so many tragic losses and disappointments?  His positive, can-do, WILL-DO outlook--the idea  of “sailing by an ash breeze”--is the most important lesson we can pass along from  Nat's life.  After all, if he'd succumbed to Ben Meeker's gloom, he would never have written The American Practical Navigator.  Just think of all the lives that would have been lost!  And the power of attitude applies to all, not just geniuses. 

Hands-on connections in this guide: Gloomy Gus activity
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

Takeaway 3

Perseverance

Though the right attitude is foundational, hard work is what helps people get where they want to go.  Nat does work hard--from self-educating when he couldn't go to Harvard, to sailing the Putnam in the monsoon season, to bringing the ship into port through a blinding fog--but he shows us that patience also counts as hard work. By applying both active and passive forms of perseverance, Nat, with no formal education, achieved a published book, command of his own ship, and an honorary Harvard degree.

Hands-on connections in this guide: Gloomy Gus activity, compass rose art, compass experiment, log book; sensory props that connote perseverance such as the inkwell and quill, slate, and textbooks; vocabulary worksheets.
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch is chock-full of wonderful topics to explore, from American history and geography to navigation and mathematics. Scroll down to see our curated Learning Links for more tangential teaching opportunities, and to see how we brought this book and its ideas to life. 

Learning Links

Explore these links to supplement your reading experience, research points of interest, and prompt tangential learning opportunities.


About the Book & Author 


Locale & context

Ships
Nathaniel Bowditch Collection (1773-1838) - (Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts)
The Astrea
Article about the real ships of Salem, Massachusetts between 1776 and 1812
Diagram of warship from Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopaedia c. 1728
Kid-friendly definitions and explanation of various navigation and nautical tools

Story Events
Kid-appropriate definition of Tuberculosis, aka  Consumption (Britannica Kids)
Kid-appropriate definition of yellow fever (Britannica Kids)
The Richard Kirwan library (New England Historical Society)
Kid-friendly explanation of the Peace of Paris Treaty from 1783 (Benjamin Franklin Historical Society)
East Indies (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
East India Company (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Books
The American Practical Navigator, 1802 edition, online (Smithsonian Institution)
The American Practical Navigator by Nathaniel Bowditch – download (Martime Safety Information)
The American Practical Navigator by Nathaniel Bowditch (affiliate link)
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

Prop Ideas

When choosing props for our live workshops, we always try to focus on two important categories: props that are unique to the setting, because they help kids understand “what that was like,” and props that are symbolic of themes, because they make big ideas visual and tangible. Both kinds of props generate those wide-eyed, “aha!” moments.

Below is an overview of the display we put together for our live workshop, and under that we've given more details. You could easily have your kids contribute items to a table over time, as the book is being read.

Sometimes we include a printable prop; click the button to see what we made for this book.
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

Latin & Harvard classics

Back in his own room; Nat stared at the Latin books. Could he do it? Well, he could try! One thing, he thought, if he ever got a chance to go to Harvard, he'd need to know Latin. Just now a chance to go to Harvard seemed farther away than ever. But, he told himself, you never could tell what might happen. If the chance came, he'd be ready. - Ch. 8

Antique student reference and geography books: The Harvard Classics edition of Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny; an inkwell and quill.

School books & math

"It's all right. I'll give him another problem." Master Watson shook his head again. "I never saw anything like it. Nat, if you knew half as much Latin as you know arithmetic, you could enter Harvard tomorrow!" - Ch. 4  

Latin and French textbooks; slate with a complex math problem worked out; Harvard classic

Also:  a colonial-style tankard

Cargo samples

"You see, Bourbon produces almost nothing but coffee and sugar."  - Ch. 12

More and more men swarmed into the square with their baskets of pepper to be weighed and stored in bags. - Ch. 23

He said, "Captain Ingersoll tells me there's plenty of coffee to complete our cargo. Then — when we've wooded, watered, and provisioned, we'll weigh anchor.  - Ch. 24

Tar

The men hadn't dried out yet from the squall. Oilskins and jerseys hung everywhere; the stench of sweat and tar slapped Nat in the face as he entered the fo'c'sle. - Ch. 14

We just happened to find some tar at the side of the road the day before our workshop.  No sweat.

Rope & a lantern

One day an errand took him to a long building called a ropewalk. He watched the ropemakers walking backwards as they twisted the fibers into yam, the yam into strands, and the strands into rope. The ropemakers were proud of their work. "Most important thing on a ship," they said. "You can't sail a ship without cordage!" - Ch. 8

"The weather's upside down," Nat told him. And with a cannon ball and a lantern, he showed Johnny how the earth goes around the sun. "You see, the axis of the earth, from the North to the South Pole, leans on a slant..." - Ch. 15

Spyglass & compass

Darkness and fog shrouded the Putnam. Nat stood near the compass, holding his watch so that he could read the face in the glow of the binnacle lamp. - Ch. 24

Along about three bells Nat came on deck with his spyglass and went to the larboard rail. The word passed swiftly. "Something's up! The Old Man's taking charge!" - Ch. 24

Other Bowditchy stuff:  a barometer and a ship model

LitWitty Shareables





Great Quotes

Mother did not answer. She was still gazing up at the sky. After a while she said, "I made up a sort of saying for myself, Nat. I will lift up my eyes unto the stars. Sometimes, if you look at the stars long enough, it helps. It shrinks your day-by-day troubles down to size." 
*
"No, Nat. We can't have freedom—unless we have freedom."
Nat stiffened. "Does that mean right to tell lies?"
Dr. Bentley smiled. "It means the right to have our own opinions." 
*
"Human problems aren't like mathematics, Nat. Every problem doesn't have just one answer; sometimes you get several answers—and you don't know which is the right one.” 
*
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

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Happy teaching,
Becky and Jenny
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LitWits teaching ideas and materials for Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
Copyright 2014 by LitWits Workshops, LLC.  All Rights Reserved.
ACTIVITY & ACADEMIC PRINTABLES

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