My Pop Studio
Lesson plans introduce media literacy to girls ages 10 - 13 by exploring music, magazines, television and online media. Each lesson is tied to a game on My Pop Studio, a free online resource for girls.
Image-ing Our Foremothers: Art as a Means of Connecting with Women's History
This is an 8 week experience for the college student that begins by setting a learning context through using library resources, especially online databases, for locating images and art that reflect a chosen research topic and creating a mural that demonstrates the students’ comprehension of the chosen topic. The experience includes conducting research on 3 significant events or people in women’s US history. The written research will be accompanied by images or art that the student has chosen
Wood Works
In some years back the craft upholstery was used to describe the making of carpets, curtains, wall hangings, mattresses and the covering of furniture with fabrics etc. However, with the upsurge of specialization during the industrial revolution, which now dominates the industrial world, the word upholstery is limited to the manufacture and repair of stuffed furniture. The making of curtains and wall hangings has now become a specialized area for interior decorators whilst the production of mattr
Maintain a chainsaw
This resource is designed based on New Zealand Qualifications Framework. It is intended for professional users of chainsaws in the forestry and other industries.
Design and Graphics Communications
The Design Process is a modern approach to the teaching of practical skills in schools, colleges and universities. It is sometimes called Product Design. In this course learners will learn how to define the Design Proces and explain the framework of design. This course discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the design process and it illustrates the design process diagrammatically. It explains problem identification techniques and discusses ways of analysing products to be designed. In add
Understanding Theatre
The goal of this course is to understand the arts of theatre, their application to daily life and to the enjoyment of theatre as an art form.
Cracking Caitlin's Code
This is a creative approach to teaching basic skills involved in the formal visual analysis of works of art. Students will learn how to interpret artworks in cultural and historical contexts by becoming "art detectives." Students will analyze Catlin's formal compositions to learn about the Native American leaders he painted. They will examine visual clues and write a final "case summary" in which they "crack Catlin's code."
QUIZ SHOW! What were you thinking? What did you say?
Native Americans responded to U.S. expansion policy in different ways. By incorporating Internet resources and working in groups, students will participate in a game show to share the information they have uncovered in a fast-paced, competitive environment. At the end of the game, the winning team receives a prize.
Inside Caitlin's Head
In the 1830s, George Catlin (1796–1872) packed his paintbrushes and trekked through remote Indian country in the Great Plains. Committed to documenting traditional Native culture, he visited more than 140 tribes and painted more than 325 portraits and 200 scenes of American Indian life. Catlin's prolific works, both his art and his writings, illustrate Indian cultures on the precipice of radical change—change that would come with U.S. expansion into tribal territories.
In this lesson, stude
The Mandan Buffalo Dance
The Mandan and the Sioux depended so heavily on certain animals that they would starve without them. In the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni depended as heavily on annual rainfall for their survival. In each of these cases, the tribes created interpretive dances to encourage the arrival of something that was so important to their survival that they would die without it. In this exercise, we will learn about how several Native American tribes construct their dances and dedications. We will also look
At Home on the Prairie
The Western landscape which George Catlin encountered on his travels was dominated by the great expanse of the tall and short grass prairies. Home to countless species of plant and animal life, the great prairies once spanned millions of acres across North America. Today less than ten percent of the complex ecosystem remains, largely under the protection of parks and nature preserves. In this lesson students will gain an understanding of the interdependence of living organisms on the prairie and
Symbols of Power in Clothing Worn by the Plains Indians
Power shirts, often made of tanned animal hides and adorned with objects such as fur, beads, and locks of hair, were highly important in the culture of many Native Americans. These shirts, which were associated very closely with the identity of their wearer, contained various symbols representing success in war, spirituality, special abilities, and outstanding achievements. After studying these shirts, learning to understand their significance to Native Americans, and discussing the symbols they
Connecting with the Past: Making a Memory Box
Artists across cultures and throughout time have sought to incorporate the multifaceted connections between past and present in their artworks. In many ways, Catlin's lifelong quest and the eventual creation of his "Indian Gallery" can be seen as an attempt to connect what he felt to be the "past" of American Indian society to the "present" of nineteenth-century westward expansion by European Americans. As is evident today, Native American culture is very much alive and present in the fabric of
Creating the Past: Understanding Artifacts
After studying the historic events of Catlin's life, this project allows students to imagine the material culture of the time. They will become archaeologists and anthropologists, looking back on previous cultures for clues as to the motives and inspirations for the choices that shaped their lives. Each student will bring in a fabricated artifact from Catlin's life, resulting in a museum exhibit in the class.
Making Treaties and Weaving Wampum: Communication Across Cultures
In this lesson students will be exposed to the cultural and artistic importance of wampum belts to the Native American tribes that George Catlin encountered on his travels, and the importance of the belts in American history as markers of relations between tribes and the U.S. Government between 1776 and 1878. Students will gain insight into the differing ways in which these cultures expressed ideas, values, and policy through objects, written documents, and oral traditions.
Smithsonian American Art Museum Education
We have digitized and indexed dozens of SAAM's free educational materials for your use. Teacher guides are listed with corresponding standards and grade levels for your convenience. Be sure to check back periodically, as more resources will be added.
SAAM's online features contain interactive or media-rich assets that can easily be used by educators in the classroom. Students can learn by viewing media or taking part in various online activities.
Online activities such as Catlin Classroom have
Tinker Ball
Exploratory play is about asking questions: “What happens when I do this?” “What if I did it this way?” Experimenting with materials and pushing their limits encourages us to consider a wide range of possibilities when problem-solving. Playing around with objects and ideas helps us see that there may be more than one solution.
Smithsonian Kids: Collecting
This site invites kids to start a collection of rocks, shells, postcards, posters, or something else that interests them. Three Smithsonian collections are sampled. Rocks and Minerals includes the Hope Diamond; Stamps includes Western Cattle in Storm (1898); Historic Coins includes the Jefferson Indian Peace Medal.
Smithsonian Jazz
This site celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month, April, by offering sound clips, information about jazz events, a directory of jazz societies (by state and country), links to other jazz websites, and four online classes featuring Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Benny Carter.
