Free Article - Bringing History into the Elementary School Classroom Using Family Artifactsby Judith Y. Singer, Long Island University, BrooklynFirst published in the Social Science Docket, Summer-Fall, 2003 The New York State Social Studies Standards include a requirement that elementary school children learn about themselves and their place in history. Family artifacts and children's literature help children learn that all people have history, and help them bring their own histories into the classroom. I have done family artifact projects with children from PreK through sixth grade. They can be used to introduce a study of Self and Family, a unit on Communities Around the World or one on Immigration to the United States.
At the beginning of the project, children bring home letters asking parents to help them select an item, an artifact, that has been in their family for a long time and has special importance to the family. To help students imagine what to bring, teachers can display their own family artifacts. I show students a hand-chopper which belonged to my grandmother (circa 1910) that she used to prepare traditional Eastern European Jewish dishes such as chopped liver or chopped eggplant. The story I tell helps make children aware of how cultural practices can be embedded in an artifact. As students bring in their artifacts, each one explains to the class what the artifact is, where it is from, what it is used for, who it belongs to, and how old it is. Children can locate their artifacts in time and space by placing them on a time line and showing where they come from on a map of the world. A photo should be taken of each student holding up his or her artifact so the class can create a Family Artifact Museum on one of its bulletin boards. Each photo is accompanied by a "museum card" containing the information about the artifact.
One of the most powerful aspects of this project is the way it builds a sense of community in the classroom, at all ages and grade levels. As they listen to one another and examine each artifact, students are facinated by the similarities and differences among their families. They express pride in learning new stories about their own families and in sharing their new knowledge with classmates.
Any of the following books can serve to introduce or enhance a family artifact project. The first three books are quilt stories. Traditionally, quilts are made from left-over scraps of cloth or the used clothing of family members. The scraps are cut into squares and then pieced together. The craft of quilting is itself an artifact, passed down from one generation of women to the next wherever they find cool nights and fabric to stitch. Quilt stories illustrate continuity and change, as the quilt and its stories remain in a family for generations, even as daily life changes. It is easy to make a facsimile quilt with children, using either cloth or paper and glue. Children can create squares about themselves or their families to contribute to a class quilt.
In two books, special dolls are at the center of the story. In one book, an elderly woman shares the stories in her hundred penny box with a young great-great nephew. In another story, a family gets together to share a holiday and a special recipe. In the final story, photographs and a favorite song help a young girl form a special bond with a grandmother who suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy, illust. by J. Pinkey (1985). NY: Dial Books for Young Readers.
In this story about an African American family, the craft of quilting is passed down from Tanya's Grandma and Mama to Tanya. As her grandmother prepares the squares for a new quilt, Tanya finds a square cut from her brother Jim's favorite blue corduroy pants, another from colorful material left from Tanya's African princess costume, and one from the gold material Mama used to make the dress she wore on Christmas night. The last squares are made from Grandma's own faded quilt, which her mother made for her when she was only Tanya's age. The new quilt holds the history of Tanya's family. Grandma tells Tanya, "A quilt won't forget. It can tell your life story."
The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco (1998). NY: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
This second quilt story spans several generations of a Jewish family, beginning with Anna, the author's great grandmother, who travels as part of an immigrant family from Russia to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The clothing Anna outgrows as a child is cut into shapes to become her family's Keeping Quilt. As Anna's family grows and travels the quilt becomes a wedding canopy, a Sabbath tablecloth, swaddling clothes for new babies, and again a quilt to keep an elderly person warm. The author tells us, "The quilt welcomed me, Patricia, into the world, and it was the tablecloth for my first birthday party." At the end of the book, Patricia is looking forward to passing on the story to her own grand-babies. In this story, readers learn that cultural traditions can become more inclusive of different beliefs, even while they help families connect to the past.
The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills (1991). Boston: Little, Brown.
The third quilt story is about Minna, a little girl from Appalachia who wants desperately to go to school, but her father has died from miner's cough, and her mother has no money to buy her a coat. The quilting mothers who come to make quilts with Minna's mother decide that they will make Minna a coat using scraps from their own quilts. Minna learns the story of each patch as it is sewn into her coat. When the coat is finally finished, Minna is ridiculed by the other children who call her "Rag-Coat." At first Minna runs away, but she returns to tell the other children the stories which she learned from the patches in her coat. Minna tells them, "Don't you see? These are all your rags!" In this story, the coat is an artifact with stories to tell about a whole community. Quilts hold people together, and they are also a source of income, as people struggle to make a living in Appalachian coal country.
The Chalk Doll by Charlotte Pomerantz, illust. by F. Lessac. (1989). Mexico: HarperCollinsPublishers.
In this story Rose begs her mother for stories of what her life was like as a young girl, growing up in Jamaica. Rose learns that her mother had a rag doll which she made herself, but her mother always wanted a "chalk" doll, a store-bought, white china doll. After Rose hears Mommy's stories about condensed milk, a late birthday dress, and high-heeled shoes made from mango pits, she decides it is time for her to have the one toy she doesn't own. Rose and her mother settle down to make a rag doll. The new rag doll will become an artifact which helps them hold onto the memories of an earlier time in Jamaica.
The Ticky-Tacky Doll by Cynthia Rylant, illust. by H. Stevenson (2002). NY: Harcourt.
This is the story of another rag doll, an artifact which is created by a wise grandmother for a little girl who is frightened to go to school and leave her favorite doll at home. The little girl and her ticky-tacky doll do everything together, but when it comes time for the little girl to go to school, the ticky-tacky doll has to stay home. The little girl was so sad, she did not eat. "And she did not count to ten." Only Grandma knew what was wrong. Grandma made the little girl a ticky-tacky child that was so small, it could be stuffed in a corner of her book bag, where no one would ever notice it, except the little girl. In this story a new artifact is created, one which speaks to the need of little children to feel connected to their homes, even when they embark on new adventures.
The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Mathis, illust. by L. & D. Dillon (1975). NY: Puffin.
A little boy named Michael, from an African American family, understands how much his great-great-Aunt Dew needs to hold on to her artifact: a wooden box containing one hundred pennies, one for every year of her life. Michael's mother wants to give Aunt Dew a new box that is smaller and prettier than the big clumsy one she has. But, like the Little Girl with her ticky-tacky doll, Great-great-Aunt Dew needs to have her old, cherished box at her side. Each penny holds a memory of a year of her life. It is full of stories about herself and her family. "When I lose my hundred penny box, I lose me," Aunt Dew announces to her great-great-nephew Michael. This story reminds us again of the importance of connections among family members, for all kinds of families.
Dumpling Soup by Jama Rattigan, illust. by L. Hsu-Flanders (1993). Boston: Little, Brown.
Not every artifact is an object. Recipes can be artifacts as well. Marisa, a little girl in Hawaii, helps make soup dumplings for the first time, a special dish much prized in her large Asian family. The recipe and the dumplings are family artifacts made with care each time this family comes together. The most important ingredient is the care and affection Marisa experiences as members of her family praise her dumplings, the "best mandoo" her grand-mother has ever tasted! Each time the family eats dumplings, they will remember Marisa's dumpling story.
Singing with Momma Lou by Linda Altman, illust. by L. Johnson (2002). NY: Lee & Low.
An African American girl uses old photographs and newspaper clippings to help her communicate with her grandmother, Momma Lou, who has Alzheimer's disease. As Tamika shows her these artifacts, Momma Lou seems to remember events in her life, like holding her first grandchild or being arrested with protesters and singing "We Shall Overcome" in jail. At the same time that the photographs and songs remind Momma Lou of her life, they help Tamika gain a new appreciation of her grandmother's participation in the Civil Rights Movement. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. Click here for lesson plan, sample museum card, and sample letter to parents. |
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