Educator Resources
The Andrew County Museum is in the process of starting an education program. We strongly encourage educators, parents, and homeschool groups to contact us with ideas. Call (816)324-4720 or email us to schedule a visit or program at your location, reserve a traveling trunk, or offer your ideas and requests.
The Way We Worked
Andrew County Museum is hosting The Way We Worked, an exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution, from May 5 – June 2, 2012. Field trips are available free of charge for Andrew County schools.
Prepare for a field trip to The Way We Worked by exploring the exhibits themes with lesson plans developed by the Missouri Humanities Council to fit Missouri social students curriculum requirements for 4th and 5th grades.
- How We Worked: Work in Andrew county has changed since the 1950’s. What was our town like in the 1950s? Students will study differences and similarities in the way we worked more than 50 years ago.
- What is Work?: There are often thin lines beteen work and play, between occupations and jobs, between voluntary work and paid employment. Using primary resoures, including the people of the community, students will develop interview skills and an appreciation for those around them who have worked to make today’s world.
- Back to the Future of Work: It takes a variety of skills and interests to fill the many types of jobs in our country. Students will identify something they enjoy or are good at. They will then research this topic in the library and find an occupation that may match their strengths. Students can create a “wax museum” where they act out the professions they explored for other students or at the museum!
- Famous Missouri Workers: Learning about the outstanding jobs that some famous Missourians have done helps us understand the world of work at a completely different level. The museum has famous Andrew County and Missourian memory game cards avaialble.
- The Work of Photography and the Photography of Work: Words and photographs have documented working through the years. Photography, used to capture Missouri working, is both a profession and an avocation. Thinking about how the photographs are made can add to the students’ appreciation of the photographs of workers shown in the exhibit “The Way We Worked.”
Introduce children and young students to The Way We Worked with exciting books specially selected by the Missouri Humanities Council. Our staff would be happy to visit your classroom for a special storytime featuring any of these books.
- Snowflake Bentley: From the time he was a small boy, Wilson Bentley saw snowflakes as small miracles. And he determined that one day his camera would capture for others the wonder of the tiny crystal. Bentley’s enthusiasm for photographing snowflakes was often misunderstood in his time, but his patience and determination revealed two important truths: no two snowflakes are alike; and each one is startlingly beautiful. His story is gracefully told and brought to life in lovely woodcuts, giving children insight into a soul who had not only a scientist’s vision and perseverance but a clear passion for the wonders of nature. “Of all the forms of water the tiny six-pointed crystals of ice called snow are incomparably the most beautiful and varied.” — Wilson Bentley. Snowflake Bentley won the 1999 Caldecott Medal.
- Ox-Cart Man: A lyrical journey through the seasons and passing years of one New Englander’s family evokes the feeling of historical America.
- Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt: When Sam Johnson inadvertently discovers how much fun sewing can be, he tries to join the Rosedale Women’s Quilting Club. “Don’t be silly,” the club president says. “We can’t have a man here bungling everything!” But Sam Johnson won’t take no for an answer. He organizes a rival sewing circle — and no women need apply.
- Mary Smith: Did you ever wonder how people woke up in time for school or work in the days before alarm clocks? In the early twentieth century, townspeople in England hired “knocker-ups” like Mary Smith for a few pence a week. Mary Smith traveled through predawn streets armed with a peashooter and a pocket watch, waking her clients at whatever hour they requested by plinking dried peas at their bedroom windows. In rollicking words and pictures, Andrea U’Ren re-creates one busy morning in the life of her intrepid true-life subject – a morning when Mary Smith helps her town start its day in timely fashion, only to receive a rude awakening when she comes home. Could it be that the knocker-up’s own daughter has been sleeping in?
Scavenger Hunts
The museum has developed a scavenger hunt for high school students in the Rural Way of Life Exhibit. Over 150 students from Savannah High School completed two scavenger hunt activities in the 2010-2011 school year to complement their U.S. History curriculum. U.S. History teacher Deb Barnhart said that the scavenger hunt helped her students realize that “every event that takes place in the national history does have an impact on local history as well.”
A list of over 100 questions is available by request.
Traveling Trunks
The museum’s education committee is in the process of developing a traveling trunk program that will enable students to have an experience with real museum artifacts in the classroom. Traveling trunks include artifacts, replicas, books and lesson plans that help the trunk come alive. All trunks are made with Missouri Grade Level Expectations and Course Level Expectations in mind. Two traveling trunks are available for Fall 2011.
The first trunk highlights the history of orchards and fruit cultivation in Andrew County. Designed for students in Kindergarten-5th Grade, “Orchards in Andrew County” features multiple activities that let students taste a variety of apples, record their favorites and their fruit eating habits while learning about one-to-one and one-to-many correspondence, familiarize themselves with basic economic skills while conducting a cost-benefit analysis and planning their own orchard. Also included in the trunk are digital photos from Schweizer’s Orchard that show the process of producing an apple for retail, historic fruit packing crates, and a list of speakers ready and willing to talk about the economics of running a small business or their family’s experience with owning and operating an orchard.
Andrew County Museum’s second trunk “The Civil War in Andrew County” is designed for middle-school students but is adaptable for a younger or older class as well. This trunk includes background research on the civil war in general, the Missouri Civil War story, and life during the Civil War in Andrew County. Compiled from Andrew County family records and Andrew County Museum archives, the documents included in this traveling trunk will help put the Civil War in a local context and help students — and educators — see the consequences of the Civil War for a new county in a new state. Activities and lesson plans suggested with the trunk include a Readers Theater activity where students read letters to and from civil war soldiers from Andrew County. Replica costumes are also provided to allow students to picture the wardrobe of a soldier.
Coming in Spring 2012: Our next traveling trunk will complement the local component of The Way We Worked, an exhibit traveling to Andrew County Museum from the Smithsonian Institution.
Special Programs & Speakers Bureau
Andrew County Museum director Glenn Uminowicz and Curator Jess Rezac are available to schedule to speak to your organization on site or in our meeting space when available. Topics for special programs can be chosen from our list of adult programs and often can be adapted for a high school classroom or for older adults. Topics include:
- An Introduction to A Rural Way of Life at Andrew County Museum
- It’s a Small Town If…
- Salem Witch Trials
- History of Baseball
- Christmas Cards
- Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals and Frederick Douglass
Andrew County Museum volunteers Georgia Golden and Donis Eisminger have also prepared an hour long tour of Civil War era artifacts. This program introduces students and seniors to some of the material culture of the civil war and tells the stories and legends of several Andrew County citizens who fought in the Civil War or suffered at the hands of roving guerrilla fighters in the county. This program can be shortened or lengthened to suit the needs of your group.
Community Service Opportunities
Andrew County Museum is always seeking new volunteers who wish to gain experience in a museum setting and help the museum collect, preserve, and interpret the history of Andrew County. Please encourage your students to visit our Volunteer page to look for opportunities that might fit their interests or to contact curator Jess Rezac directly by phone (816)324-4720 or email to inquire about special opportunities. Volunteer opportunities may also be adapted into unpaid internships.
How We WorkedWork in Andrew county has changed since the 1950’s. What was our town like in the 1950s? Students will study differences and similairities in the way we worked more than 50 years ago.
What is Work?There are often thin lines beteen work and play, between occupations and jobs, between voluntary work and paid employment. Using primary resoures, including the people of the community, students will develop interview skills and an appreciation for those around them who have worked to make today’s world.
Back to the Future of WorkIt takes a variety of skills and interests to fill the many types of jobs in our country. Students will identify something they enjoy or are good at. They will then research this topic in the library and find an occupation that may match their strengths. Students can create a “wax museum” where they act out the professions they explored for other students or at the museum!
Famous Missouri WorkersLearning about the outstanding jobs that some famous Missourians have done helps us understand the world of work at a completely different level. The museum has famous Andrew County and Missourian memory game cards avaialble.
The Work of Photography and the Photography of WorkWords and photographs have documented working through the years. Photography, used to capture Missouri working, is both a profession and an avocation. Thinking about how the photographs are made can add to the students’ appreciation of the photographs of workers shown in the exhibit “The Way We Worked.”
