Activity 3: Collage, What's in the Barn?
Activity time: 15 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Magazines and catalogs to cut up
- Construction paper - two sheets for each child, one red sheet and one sheet in another color
- Glue sticks and scissors (including left-handed scissors)
Preparation for Activity
- Gather magazines or catalogs with diverse images of young children and pictures of school supplies.
- Cut sheets of red construction paper in half to make a set of barn doors to tape or glue on top of each child's collage.
- Make a sample of the project with the collage inside the barn door.
Description of Activity
This activity extends children's experience of the story "Barn School, Free School" (Activity 1). Participants will each make a barn that opens to show children at school inside.
Show the children the barn sample. Ask them "What's in the barn?" They will answer all sorts of animals. Open the barn door and surprise them that there are children inside. Talk about the school that met in the barn. Invite volunteers to summarize the story.
Distribute the construction paper you have not made into barn doors, along with magazines, scissors, and glue sticks for children to share. Invite participants to cut out pictures of children and school supplies and make a collage to make their own barn school. Distribute construction paper. Using glue sticks, they will glue all the magazine pictures on a piece of construction paper.
As children finish, help them tape or glue on their barn doors to the edges of their collage.
Process with these questions:
- I wonder what your family will expect behind the barn door.
- How will you tell about the barn school?
- Why is it important that Dorothea Dix taught school to poor children?
- How did Dorothea Dix make the world fair and free?
Including All Participants
Pre-cut pictures if the group includes very young children or some who may be unable to use scissors.
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