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• » Introduction of Primary Sources (Lesson 5)

Introduction of primary sources: A Personal Primary Source Shoebox (Lesson 5)

Created By: Debbie Hohulin, Gibson City Melvin Sibley Elementary School (Gibson City, IL)
Grade Level: 1st
Content Area: Social Studies, Language Arts, Fine Arts, Technology
Database Integration: Students will learn about the TDC database, and use it for a final project.

Background information for the teacher:

Main page to access TDC database.

Students can learn to recognize primary resources in their own lives by creating personal archives. The following activity is adapted from Using Archival Materials by Ellen Chesnut on the website: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/k12/primary_lesson.htm and I have adapted it even more.

Materials:

The children will need to bring most of these materials to class before the day of the lesson. I would have already shown them my box and the things I have in it to give them ideas.

From home: A decorated shoe box with lid. Photographs of self and family. Favorite small toy that will fit in the shoebox. A letter or card sent to them that shows their home address or draw a map of where you live. A wrapper from your favorite candy. Anything else that they would want in the shoebox.

In class: play-doh, piper cleaners, self-portrait page, pencils.

Procedures:

• A. Introduction-teacher directed.

  *At the carpet: Show them my shoebox again and tell them we are going to add to more primary sources about ourselves into the box today. Pass out clipboards for everyone and the Self-Portrait Page. Go through each part together and fill in as we go, including my own. When we are done, collect them. Put them in their shoeboxes later.

• B. Hands-on Activity: Each at their own desk:
  1. Demonstrate how to make an artifact that represents something about myself with the play-doh and pipe cleaners. (Like a woman playing basketball). Explain how much I love to play and this is an artifact that I have made about myself.
  2. Pass out the play-doh and pipe cleaners to everyone. Let them make their own artifact about themselves.
  3. Have them carefully put the artifact in their shoeboxes.
• C. Wrap-Up:
  1. Call over to carpet area. Ask for each group to share their poster.
  2. Show them my shoebox, Self-Portrait Page and personal artifact. Just like we have made a shoebox full of primary sources all about ourselves, there are primary sources about other people and things that we can look at to learn about them.
  3. Point back to large poster paper and say: Just like we have primary sources in our own lives, draw a shoebox on the Primary Source Poster, so we can find primary sources about people or things we want to know about. You may have the actual primary sources, like we do in our shoeboxes about ourselves, or you may have photographs of them, like we have from the TDC site that we have been using.

Assessment:

Students will learn to recognize primary sources in their own lives by creating these personal primary resource shoeboxes. They will continue to be exposed to the terms: artifacts, letters, photographs, etc. as primary sources and the idea that websites, like the TDC are places they can go to find them.

Observations:

Changes for next lesson:

Lesson Plans in this Unit:

• Lesson 1: Introduction of Artifacts as a Primary Source
• Lesson 2: Introduction of Artifacts as a Primary Source
• Lesson 3: Introduction to TDC site
• Lesson 4: Introduction of photographs, maps, letters and newspaper articles as primary sources
• Lesson 5: A Personal Primary Source Shoebox
• Lesson 6: Class Celebration of Primary Sources

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