Last curiosity chat!
I will admit that talking about trains and primary sources and lessons seems a little out of the ordinary. But that is the best way to engage kids – sharing ‘out of the box’ ideas. The every day-ness of primary sources is what makes them special. We encounter music every day, trains have been a part of our national landscape for over 100 years, automobiles, movie theaters and films, photography... all are the ‘stuff’ that rounds out our sense of what is real about life.
This post is a quick look at 3 sites to play with. Play with them. Use them as Q-focus items at the beginning of a unit- or in the middle as an engaging way to add some fun to your day. These sites can be used by students as they write reports or conduct inquiry. Send them on a scavenger hunt. Mostly, enjoy the sites for the many ways they can help your student see some of the day-to-day experiences of people in different places and time.
FASHION
The clothes we wear every day helps inform those things we can – and can’t easily – do. When women wore a corset. it was hard to breathe much less run around the block or other athletic endeavors. Fashion reflects culture with sari, burka, dresses, jeans, swimming suits making up a part of how we interact with our physical space, while creating a standard of behavior that is kept within the bounds of that dress. The “roaring 20’s” and the “swinging ‘60’s” both included major shifts in dress and fashion; both of which included gender role changes in behavior and expectations. Send your students to the timeline from the Fashion Institute of Technology:
How does fashion inform culture?
FOOD
What we eat is determined by geography, economics, and culture. Take your students back in time through the many foods:
This site covers Medieval recipes, Byzantine recipes, Elizabethan recipes; and includes discussions on feasts, as well as a typical dinner conversation in an Elizabethan household. For those who might like to try their hand at creating a medieval dish, there is a section for beginners.
Look for
Perys in Confyte (Pears in honey sauce)
Cherry Torte
Marinated Olives
Steamed Cabbage
HOUSEHOLD GADGETS
We know that today we can pull out the mixer if we want to make a cake; pop our clothes into the washing machine, and iron our clothes with an electric iron. How did we get here? How was laundry completed in the early 1800's? Rolling pins have a history? Who knew?
Check out these sites:
Have fun with your students by introducing a “gadget of the day” and let them guess its use.
Example: Place this image on the board, or project it on your whiteboard or screen:
Ideas for use:
-Keep the image up for one week, allowing students to place their guess on what this is and how it was used in a box that gets opened in class. You can read the guesses out loud and discuss them together. Give kudos to any correct answers (prizes?) and acknowledge any who tried. Chat about the creativity of answers and critical thinking involved.
-Use as a Q-focus by placing it on the board and let students follow the QFT to ask questions. Prioritize the top three questions that allow for the research that can be carried on right away in class leading to discussion of research techniques and subsequent hypotheses.
-Use at class beginning,giving students 5-10 minutes to research while you take role, etc. Have them put their answers in their resarch journal and share at the end of the week (plus they could, if they wanted, research during the week), or as quick discussion before starting class.
(one proviso: there are some broken links - check the sites in another tab using site titles).
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