Walking into Grandma’s house on Thanksgiving day, do you smell turkey in the oven, the warm pumpkin pie, hot bread, and apple cider on the stove? Does your family have other traditions that speak about your own customs and history?
What if we invited our students to make historical meals that would travel them back in time to the customs, traditions, and scents of meals from the past? In a unique way, we would engage a learning style that could be coupled with research on not only finding the recipes but why the people we study used those ingredients. Some possibilities include asking students to research on the web the appropriate recipes for the period the class is studying, how and why those ingredients were chosen, and report about their experience cooking, smelling, and tasting the food. Students might also research their own family’s unique recipes, where they came from, and how they are still important to their family’s customs and experiences.
Below are a few web sites with historical recipes.
http://www.historyforkids.org/crafts/index.htm
http://www.shootingstarhistory.com/kidshistory/crafts.htm
http://www.foodtimeline.org/
http://www.foodbooks.com/recipes.htm
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/
http://www.reciperewards.com/Historical.html
As you celebrate Thanksgiving, take a moment to experience some of your family's unique traditions and customs and consider some shared meal traditions you may have with other families. Students in the future might research these very meals and traditions to learn about you!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Get Engaged
How do we engage students and provide opportunities to actively experience history?
The University of California One outlines a cohesive plan at The History Project Website . Instructors “apprentice students in age-appropriate ways” to “learn to work with sources, consider different perspectives, analyze and interpret information, and marshal evidence in support of their conclusions.” This project includes a lesson plan template, a linear research method, and a sample lesson. Additionally, you’ll find here numerous image and primary source document resources including Our Documents website that houses 100 key US primary sources with images of the originals, transcripts and lessons plans. Hippocampus.org has primary source documents included in its lessons in appropriate places such as the Virginia Charter in the Jamestown Lesson.
But we’ve talked about utilizing primary sources before. I really want students to engage history. Mission Inn Museum in California is getting closer to what I am thinking of with their Hands-On History Lesson Plans and their Family Voices Project. In the Family Voices Project students are “given the task of choosing a family-related object or tradition and conducting research on their chosen subject with their families. Project artists- including a writer, a storyteller/singer, and a photographer- work with the students through numerous workshops to teach the students how to preserve their family heritages through written, oral, and visual techniques.” What a way to make history relevant to the student and a life-long mission!
The Family Voices project could be adapted to any classroom or online learning environment, but the students would become their own artists. As a group project each student could be responsible for creating a piece of the project to illustrate a tradition or historical significance of an object. A history must be able to research a topic but also be able to tell the story in a creative and interesting way so others will listen. This project certainly gets the students involved in research but also how to share their knowledge with others in dynamic ways.
Next time get ready to engage your sense of smell!
The University of California One outlines a cohesive plan at The History Project Website . Instructors “apprentice students in age-appropriate ways” to “learn to work with sources, consider different perspectives, analyze and interpret information, and marshal evidence in support of their conclusions.” This project includes a lesson plan template, a linear research method, and a sample lesson. Additionally, you’ll find here numerous image and primary source document resources including Our Documents website that houses 100 key US primary sources with images of the originals, transcripts and lessons plans. Hippocampus.org has primary source documents included in its lessons in appropriate places such as the Virginia Charter in the Jamestown Lesson.
But we’ve talked about utilizing primary sources before. I really want students to engage history. Mission Inn Museum in California is getting closer to what I am thinking of with their Hands-On History Lesson Plans and their Family Voices Project. In the Family Voices Project students are “given the task of choosing a family-related object or tradition and conducting research on their chosen subject with their families. Project artists- including a writer, a storyteller/singer, and a photographer- work with the students through numerous workshops to teach the students how to preserve their family heritages through written, oral, and visual techniques.” What a way to make history relevant to the student and a life-long mission!
The Family Voices project could be adapted to any classroom or online learning environment, but the students would become their own artists. As a group project each student could be responsible for creating a piece of the project to illustrate a tradition or historical significance of an object. A history must be able to research a topic but also be able to tell the story in a creative and interesting way so others will listen. This project certainly gets the students involved in research but also how to share their knowledge with others in dynamic ways.
Next time get ready to engage your sense of smell!
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