The Depot Museum

A Teacher's Curriculum

A Teacher's Curriculum Guide:

Introduction

Teaching with the Depot Museum's curriculum guide provides a rich opportunity to enhance your museum visit by bring East Texas history into the classroom. Students can experience the excitement of our special heritage and culture through stories, visuals and activities. Lesson plans are geared to second through fourth grade.

Know-Want-Learn Strategy
A good way to determine what students already know about a topic and what direction the teacher should follow in responding to their existing knowledge is to use the K-W-L strategy.

The teacher will :
1. Introduce the topic ( example: East Texas Indians) and lead the students in brainstorming what they KNOW about the topic.
2. Have the students (individually or in groups) write what they think they KNOW about the topic on their worksheets.
3. Next, have students (individually or in groups) generate and record questions about what they WANT to learn on their worksheets.
4. Students then should read the text, jotting down answers as they go.
5. Help students LEARN the information by confirming the information they think they know.
6. Finally, engage students in a discussion of what they learned from reading. If they were unable to locate answers to their questions, students should be encouraged to continue their search using other sources of information.
Bring your unanswered questions with you to the museum when you visit and let the museum staff help with the answers.

Know-Want-Learn Worksheet:

LESSON ONE

TOPIC: Personal Family History (Introduction Lesson and Activities)

GRADE: 3 & 4

CURRICULUM CONNECTION: Social Studies

TEKS: Grade 3 - (2), (3), (17)
Grade 4 - (5), (23)

OBJECTIVES: The student will: understand the common characteristics of their
personal history of the past and how it connects with the present;
comprehend the concepts of time and chronology.

VOCABULARY: occupation, country, originate, town, generation, timeline, ancestor,
decade, century, chronology

BACKGROUND MATERIAL: Discuss with the students and show examples of a
timeline; explain the purpose

LESSON ACTIVITIES: "A Personal Time Line"
Have students construct a timeline that includes names of student's parents, siblings, grandparents, ect., their birthdate and place of birth, occupations, ect. (The Personal Family History Questionnaire worksheet activity will obtain this information for the students) Also, above the timeline do a highlight of the decades. You might want to provide this information for the students.

1. Have students complete the "Personal Family History Questionnaire". They will need to take this home and have parents/guardians help to fill this out.
2. Next, have students complete the timeline worksheet (this will be a rough draft of the project).
3. Project & Presentation: Have students create a poster type rendition of their timeline. Encourage them to be creative. Example: could add pictures; make a "clothesline" type display.

MATERIALS: timeline worksheet; "Personal Family History Questionnaire" worksheet; paper; pen; pencil; posterboard; magazines

REFERENCES: family

PERSONAL FAMILY HISTORY QUESTIONNAIRE

1. What is your father's full name?

2. Where was he born - town, state, or country?

3. What is his birthdate? (date, month, and the year)

4. What is your mother's full name?

5. Where was she born - town, state, or country?

6. What is her birthdate? (date, month, and year)

7. What are the names of your grandparents? (father's father, father's mother, mother's father, mother's mother)

8. Where (town, state, or country) when (year, at least) were each of your grandparents born?

9. What are (or were) the occupations of ALL your grandparents?

10. From which country did your father's family come originally?

11. From which country did your mother's family come originally?

12. When did your ancestors (on both sides) first come to this country?

13. Where did they enter this country?

14. What was the first place they settled? (town or state)

15. Which cities or states has your family lived in?

16. How did the town you live in (near) get its name?

17. Who or what lived there before it became a town?

18. Why does your town happen to be where it is?

Timeline Worksheet:

Sample Timeline:

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