Level: Classroom
Grades: Elementary Lower (K-2)
School Quarter: 2
Related School Level Activities:
Activity: Discovering Childhood in the Past
Theme Alignment: New Mexico’s Contribution
Toolkit Overview (In this toolkit):
- Background
- How to implement this activity
- Resources
Background:
This activity encourages students to learn about the past by engaging with an adult’s memories of their own childhood. Through sharing these stories in class, students will gain a sense of how things have changed. They will also understand that people have different kinds of childhood experiences. While some people grew up in New Mexico and stayed here, other people have come from many other places, around the United States and the rest of the world. Populations of places change over time, and people who live in New Mexico now may live elsewhere in the future.
How To:
Link to Implementation / How to checklist document
- Discovering Childhood in the Past
- Read the book Grandfather’s Journey or a similar story in class
- Ask a grown up to tell you about what life was like when they were a kid.
- Ask to see a photo from their childhood. This could be their photo or of the town where they grew up
- If possible, get a copy of the photo
- Ask them to draw the image from memory on paper
- Or draw the image based on the grown up’s description
- Show & Share about the photo
- What is something that is the same about when this photo was taken and now?
- What is something that is different?
- Create a collage or bulletin board with your class
Resources:
- Top 3 interview questions to ask an adult
- Teaching with Oral History: Lower Elementary – includes printable resources
- An Introduction to Oral History – includes copyright and consent form
- Reading Rocket’s Introduction to Oral History – includes book recommendations