Learning Activities

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Pre-Visit Activities:

·      View The One Room School; video from Iowa Heritage Series

http://www.iptv.org/video/browse.cfm/program/15846/iowa_heritage

·      Suggested read aloud books [see: Suggested Reading Materials]

·      Play a recess game [see: Games & Activities for the One-room School Recess]

·      Reflect on Then and Now [see: Then and Now: The School Classroom through Photographs & Artifacts in the Classroom]

·      Journaling activity [see: How is my school different from a one-room school house?]

·      Create straw hats for boys http://www.hoover.archives.gov/LIW/strawhat/activities_strawhat.html

·      Create sunbonnets for girls

http://www.hoover.archives.gov/LIW/sunbonnet/activities_sunbonnet.html

At the School: [see: Activities at the One-Room School]

·      Line-up, boys and girls

·      Opening exercises and song

·      Spelling Bee – volunteers

·      Cipher Down – volunteers

·      Grooming Lesson

·      Memorizing (i.e. Poem, Preamble to the Constitution, states and capitals, presidents to 1910), elocution, reading lessons: three different activities at the same time

·      Group singing

·      Group handwriting exercises

·      Recess, games for indoors or outdoors depending on the weather

·      Artifact exploration

·      Reading old photos

·      Closing activities

Post-Visit Activities

·      Students will plan and create an artifact and/or document to be given to the museum. This artifact represents their personal contribution to the preservation and continuation of local history. It can be an original student project or something that can be used in the schoolroom.

Ø  Suggested projects include: a personal diary, student writings, stories, poems, drawings, maps, plays, readers’ theater, puppet show, dioramas, models, videos, multimedia presentations, or any idea that the students come up with.

Ø  Students might also create window decorations for the schoolroom for various seasons (example, leaves for fall), or other items that could be used in the school.

·      Students will engage in a discussion about the preservation of buildings and other artifacts for the future.

·      Students will conduct oral history interview about school with a person over 20 years old. [see: Sample Questions for an Interview: Elementary School Experience]

·      Older Students may craft a quill pen & ink. This project could be incorporated into a science lesson or study of pioneer life.

Ø   The Quill Pen, New Hampshire Historical Society https://www.nhhistory.org/edu/support/nhgrowingup/quillpens.pdf

Ø  Making Natural Dyes From Plants, Pioneer Thinking http://www.pioneerthinking.com/crafts/crafts-basics/naturaldyes.html