Suggested Activities > Image Specific Activities

“Country School” Norman Rockwell’s painting of schools and the teachers and students who inhabited them remind us of a time when many small towns had one-room schoolhouses and there was usually just one teacher for all grades. It was a time when kids sat at their desks and did their alphabet and multiplication tables with pencil and paper, not computers and calculators. In 1930, Rockwell married a schoolteacher, Mary Barstow; they had three sons. Published on Nov. 2, 1946 Then Now Hand-rung bells electric bells with timers Wood or coal-burning stove heat and air-conditioning No homework (chores) daily homework Quill pens ballpoint pens Abacus calculator (or computer) Oral tests written tests

Suggested Activity: Comparison Writing

Objectives

Students will:

• Use visual-thinking strategies to analyze the “Country School” image.
• Discuss the characteristics of a country classroom then and now.
• Make a Venn diagram as a class that compares the image classroom to their current classroom.
• Write a comparison story as a class using the Venn diagram.
• Create an individual Venn diagram comparing their classroom now to one in the future.
• Write an individual comparison story using their Venn diagram.
• Create a picture of their classroom now and a classroom in the future that correlates with their story.
• Share work with classmates.

Academic Standards

Supplies needed

• selected Rockwell image for students to view
• art supplies (paper, colored pencils, etc.)
• writing supplies
• scanner or digital camera

Optional:

• drawing software
• word-processing software

Procedure

1. Use “A Teacher’s Guide to Looking at and Talking About Art” to introduce visual-thinking strategies to your class. Complete this activity with the following “Be an Art Detective” activity.
2. Brainstorm about what a country school at that time might be like.
3. All grades in one classroom
4. One teacher for all grades
5. Classroom environment
6. Dress code
7. Discuss how country schools are different today.
8. Distance education
9. Internet
10. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the country school in the image to your school now.
11. Write as a class a comparison story about the two schools.
12. Students use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast their classroom now to one in the future.
13. Students use their Venn diagrams to write a comparison story.
14. Students can then draw an image of their classroom now and their future classroom so it correlates with their story.
15. Students share their work with the class.
16. Convert student work to digital format.
17. Make an e-scrapbook.

Enrichment Activities

• Students can write a story about the life of a student in the image.
• Students can write a comparison of their life to the life of student living during the year of the image.
• Students can use mapping skills with a map key to draw a picture of a classroom then and now.
• Students can choose one item to draw a timeline series. For example, what did a student classroom desk look like then, now and in the future?

• Books
  
  

  K-2 • THANKSGIVING AT OUR HOUSE. Wendy Watson. • A ONE-ROOM SCHOOL. Bobbie Kalman. • A COUNTRY SCHOOLHOUSE. Lynne Barasch. • KIRSTEN LEARNS A LESSON: A SCHOOL STORY. Janet Shaw. • IT'S BACK TO SCHOOL WE GO! Ellen Jackson. 3-5 • ONE ROOM SCHOOL. Raymond Bial. • FRONT PORCH STORIES AT THE ONE ROOM SCHOOL. Eleanora Tate. • RUTHIE'S GIFT. Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. • THE SECRET SCHOOL. Avi.




Insert websites here

Family Learning Home Connection

• How have classrooms changed since your parents were in school? How has schoolwork changed? How have extracurricular activities changed? How has the dress code changed? Make a Venn diagram and/or create a “Classrooms - Then and Now” scrapbook, comparing your life in school to your parents’ lives in school. Use the interview worksheet to get started.
• Draw a timeline picture frame of a classroom like the image, when your parents were in school, your classroom now and an imagined classroom in the future.

Assessment

K-2 checklist

3-5 story rubric

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