After completing the lessons in this unit,
students will be able to: - List similarities and differences between the
lives of people 200 years ago and people today (e.g., ways of obtaining food,
drink, and clothing; having fun; forming organizations; living by rules and laws).
- Cite reasons for differences in the way people lived in earlier times and
the way they live now.
- Describe how changes in household tools,
communication, transportation, recreation, and technology have changed the way
people live and work.
Guiding Question:
In what ways is everyday life today significantly different from everyday life
200 years ago?
Preparing to Teach this Lesson
- Review each lesson in this unit and
select archival materials you'd like to use in class. Bookmark these materials,
along with other useful websites, if possible; download and print out selected
documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing. URLs are provided
for direct access to the images used in the lesson; simply click on the link to
access any image. Home page URLs also are provided to credit sources and to allow
for further exploration as desired.
- This unit consists of a series
of brief lessons. Lessons could be conducted as whole-class activities, or students
could work independently at stations. Where sufficient technology is available,
computers can serve as learning centers. The five images in Lesson
2 can be displayed in five windows on one computer screen or separately on
five or even ten computers (for five or ten groups). In a computer lab, a few
of the activities can be conducted simultaneously. If desired, adult aides or
older students could be assigned to stations to assist students.
- The lessons are organized chronologically and would be most effective presented
that way. The first seven activities represent aspects of everyday life from about
1740 to the early 1800s. The last five activities represent aspects of everyday
life from the late 1700s to the mid-1800s. These two sets of activities could
be used at different times during the year, depending on your curriculum. If desired,
pick and choose from among the activities, using any particular lesson when it
is appropriate for your class.
- Lesson
11 requires the following supplies:
- Dried corn husks (the inner husks
are better than the outer ones)
- Cotton string
- Water and container
for it
- Small piece of corncob, horse chestnut, large wooden bead, ping
pong ball or styrofoam ball (optional)
- A read-aloud activity
is often a great way to establish an anticipatory set. One book particularly
pertinent to this unit is Turn of the Century,
written by Ellen Jackson and illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis (Charlesbridge Publishing,
1998; ISBN: 088106369X; Reading level: Ages 9-12, younger for reading aloud).
- Refer to the complementary EDSITEment lesson Reading,
Writing, and 'Rithmetic in the One-Room Schoolhouse, which encourages students
to compare and contrast school life in the one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century
with the modern schools of today.
Suggested Activities
Lesson
1: What Would Change in This Picture? (mid-1700s)
Lesson
2: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same (1750-1800)
Lesson
3: Getting Dressed in the 18th Century
Lesson
4: You Gotta Make a Living (1750-1800)
Lesson
5: Let's Go Shopping (1750-1800)
Lesson
6: Bet You Can't Guess! (late 1700s to early 1800s)
Lesson
7: Bet You Can't Guess! - Part 2 (c. 1800-1840)
Lesson
8: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same - Part 2 (c. 1800-1840)
Lesson 9: Digging
Up the Past
Lesson
10: An Early American Game (1800-1840)
Lesson
11: An Early American Toy (1800-1840)
Lesson
12: The Match Game
Extending
the Lesson
Lesson 1 What Would Change in
This Picture? (mid-1700s)
Share with your students an artist's
rendering of Life
in London Town from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Learning
from London Town.
If someone were to photograph the exact same street
today, what would be different? Depending on the class, students can brainstorm
the differences in a whole-group setting, work in small groups to create a list
of changes, or create a contemporary update of the picture through drawing or
cutting and pasting directly on the picture (enlarged, if possible). Create a
class list of the items that would change in the picture and how they would be
updated.
Lesson 2 The More Things Change,
the More They Stay the Same (1750-1800)
Have students list the
differences, if any, between the following common objects from 1750-1800, all
featured on the EDSITEment resource At
Home in the Heartland Online, and similar objects we use today:
Lesson 3 Getting Dressed in the
18th Century
Note: The interactive activity featured in this lesson
focuses on 18th-century girls' clothing. For more information, including facts
about boys' clothing, consult Children's
Clothing and A
Colonial Child's Clothing: A Glossary of Terms, both available on the website
of Colonial Williamsburg,
a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library. The activity can be completed online and/or offline using
the doll and its accessories, which can be downloaded and printed out. When using
the game online, the correct images must be chosen in order. If the images in
the game dissolve when dragged, open a second window. Each time you toggle back
to the window with the game, the images should be in place.
If
using the game offline, print out copies of the doll and clothing for each student,
have each student dress the paper doll and then compare the order of clothing
items each student chose. The teacher can then demonstrate the correct order,
and the class can discuss the purpose of each item of clothing.
In this
interactive activity — Eighteenth-Century
Paper Doll Game — students will see all the steps it took for an 18th-century
girl to get dressed. What steps in the process are the same today? What is completely
different about getting dressed in the 18th century? What kind of outfit is this
girl wearing? Do you think all children during this time period dressed in such
fancy clothes?
Lesson 4 You Gotta Make a Living
(1750-1800)
Have students view the following images from the website
of Colonial Williamsburg,
a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library, of 18th-century people at work: As
a class or working in small groups, brainstorm what each picture reveals. What
does the person do for a living? What is the person doing in the picture? Which
of these jobs no longer exist? Which jobs exist in another form? Which jobs are
very much the same?
An alternative activity would be to have students
match the early American job with a picture of a similar modern job. How was the
18th-century job different?
Lesson 5 Let's Go Shopping (1750-1800)
Ask your students to write about or illustrate how they shop for medicine,
shoes and/or clothing. After scrutinizing the images listed below, from the website
of Colonial Williamsburg,
a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet
Public Library, have students brainstorm and create a list of the differences
in the process.
Lesson 6 Bet You Can't Guess!
(late 1700s to early 1800s)
Have students carefully observe the
following images of items from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, all available
on The Five
Points Site, a link from the EDSITEment resource ArchNet,
and form a hypothesis about the purpose of each object. A "hint" question is provided
with each image link to help students guess the purpose of each of the items.
Now reveal the
true function of each object. How close were the students' guesses?
Note:
For learning stations, the answer, something akin to the riddle-like questions
above, or a picture of the modern equivalent of each object, could be attached
to the back of the downloaded images.
Lesson 7 Bet You Can't Guess! - Part
2 (c. 1800-1840)
Have students carefully observe the following
images of items from the early 19th century, all available on the EDSITEment resource
At
Home in the Heartland Online, and form a hypothesis about the purpose of each
object. Now reveal the true
function of each object. How close were the students' guesses?
Note:
For learning stations, the answer, something akin to the riddle-like questions
above, or a picture of the modern equivalent of each object could be attached
to the back of the downloaded images.
Lesson 8 The More Things Change, the
More They Stay the Same - Part 2 (c. 1800-1840)
Have students
list the differences, if any, between the following objects from 1800-1840, all
available on the EDSITEment resource At
Home in the Heartland Online, and similar objects we use today. The teacher can select a few of the objects and explain the
context and uses for them. For instance, the milk pan can be used to explain the
process of getting milk from cows and making cream, butter, etc., both in the
past and with today's dairy farms and supermarkets, refrigerated trucks, pasteurization,
etc. The yarn winder can be used to explain how clothes were made, then and now.
The teacher can explain the processes of shearing sheep or picking cotton, carding,
spinning, etc. The teacher can relate the yarn winder to the spinning wheels depicted
in the tales of Sleeping Beauty and Rumpelstiltskin.
Lesson 9 Digging
Up the Past
How do we know about everyday life
in early America? Students can be "online archaeologists" through the EDSITEment
resource Learning
from London Town's Virtual Dig. Using the inventory
chart, students can determine the functions of the objects they find.
Using
the EDSITEment resource, Learning
from London Town, the teacher can describe what an archaeologist does: learns
about past cultures by studying the remains left behind by people. Teachers can
introduce students to the idea of archaeology by having students perform "Digging
the Cellar at Rumney's Tavern", an interactive activity in which students
become archaeologists and "dig" in the cellar by moving their mouse over the diagram
of the drawing of the profile of the cellar dig at Rumney's Tavern. When the mouse
arrow turns into a hand, a message appears at the bottom of the computer screen
identifying the found object. Students then click on the screen to see a picture
of their discovery.Teachers can then ask: "How do these objects compare to
the objects seen in the previous lessons? Where do these objects come from? How
do we find objects from the past?" After completing Lessons 7 and 8, "Bet You
Can't Guess!" and Lessons 2 and 9, "The More Things Change, the More They Stay
the Same," teachers can use this complementary lesson to bring up overarching
questions such as, "What do objects tell us about how the people who used them
lived? How do we go about finding out what life was like at other points in history?
Which objects from the past have remained part of our everyday life today?"
This
interactive activity reinforces previous lessons about change and continuity from
past to present and introduces the concepts of the archaeologist and of learning
about earlier ways of life by uncovering objects of the past.
Lesson 10 An Early American Game
(1800-1840)
Give your students the
opportunity to play an early American game. Games for both indoor and outdoor
play may be found at Games
to Try on Historic
Latta Plantation, a link from the EDSITEment resource Women
of the West Museum.
Lesson 11 An Early American Toy (1800-1840)
Your students can create their own ball from corn husks and string. Instructions
and background information may be found at Corn
Husk Ball on Historic
Latta Plantation, a link from the EDSITEment resource Women
of the West Museum.
After the students have had the chance to make
and use the ball, encourage discussion. Did students find it challenging or difficult
to make the corn husk ball? Do they have to work as hard for their toys today?
Is the corn husk ball a fun toy to play with?
Lesson 12 The Match Game
Culminate the lesson with a discussion based on the guiding question presented
at the beginning of the unit: In what ways is everyday life today significantly
different from everyday life 200 years ago? Attempt to arrive at a conclusion.
Has everyday life changed radically, or is it basically the same? For example,
is play essentially the same because students still throw and catch balls, or
has such play radically changed since we use different balls?
Have students
represent their findings graphically. Using a bulletin board, computer, or some
other type of display, students can post images of early American objects beside
contemporary objects. They can even invite other classes to attempt to match the
images.
For the Match Game, download the "Then
and Now" chart, print it out, and and make copies for your students (Download
chart, which is Word format).You can provide magazines for students to cut
and paste images, or they can draw their own pictures, in the appropriate spaces
on the chart. For each object, students can answer the questions, "What is it?"
and "What is it used for?" Their responses can become the basis for a class discussion
comparing life in the 18th and 19th centuries with life today.
Extending the Lesson
- If you plan to invite other classes to your
classroom, as suggested in Lesson
12, make a celebration of it. Hold an Early American Fair, in which students
display and/or demonstrate some of the objects they encountered in this lesson
in booths.
- Students could be challenged to write stories with a time
travel theme. What would happen if one of them were whisked back to early America?
What would happen if someone from early America were whisked to modern times?
Selected EDSITEment Websites
-
ArchNet
http://archnet.asu.edu
-
The Five Points Site
http://r2.gsa.gov/fivept/fphome.htm
-
At Home in the Heartland Online
http://museum.state.il.us/exhibits/athome/welcome.htm
-
The Digital Classroom National Archives and Records Administration
http://www.nara.gov/education/classrm.html
- Internet Public
Library
http://www.ipl.org
-
The Betsy Ross Homepage
http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/
-
Carol Hurst Children's Literature Page
http://www.carolhurst.com/index.html
- Colonial Williamsburg
http://www.history.org/
-
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
http://www.britannica.com/
-
Learning from London Town
http://www.keyschool.org/londontown/Pages/Pages/learnflt.html
- Museum of
the History of Science
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk
-
Le Musée des arts et métiers, Paris
http://www.cnam.fr/museum/
-
Whole Cloth
http://www.si.edu/lemelson/centerpieces/whole_cloth/
- Women of the West
Museum
http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/wwmonline/
-
Notable Women Ancestors
http://www.rootsweb.com/~nwa/
-
Historic Latta Plantation
http://www.lattaplantation.org/
Other Resources:
Recommended reading from Carol
Hurst Children's Literature Page, a link from Internet
Public Library - Hall, Donald. Ox-Cart
Man. Illustrated by Barbara Cooney. (Audience: Grade 1)
Standards Alignment
View your state’s standards