NEW YORK CITY NOW, NEW AMSTERDAM LONG AGO

 

Two third grade classes at a New York City public school chose the topic of New York City's
history as the program focus.
(The faces of the children are not displayed because I do not have parental permission slips. In any case, it might be best not to display clear,identifiable images of children on the internet for security reasons)

 

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Project 1:
All Around New York
Styrofoam Sculpture Project

We began with a styrofoam art project, with topics relating to New York City today.

The goal of the project was to acquaint the children with different aspects of New York City life,and the 5 boroughs of New York City.

The children pasted appropriate project pictures on sticks and inserted the sticks into a painted styrofoam base.

 

 

The topics included for one class were: Buildings of New York City, Parades, Stores, Entertainment and New York City Baseball.

There were spaces on some of the pictures for the children to write descriptions,as well as signs thus including writing literacy.

The second class focused on the boroughs of New York City.

 

 

The children were pleased with the results..... and so were the teachers and project leaders.

 

CLICK EACH PICTURE BELOW FOR A LARGER VIEW

Famous Buldings in New York



...........The Borough of Queens

 



........New York City Parades

 

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N.Y.C. Baseball

 

Shopping in New York City ....

 

...The Borough of Brooklyn .

 

 



The Borough of the Bronx

 

 



Entertainment in New York City




...........The Borough of Staten Island




The Borough of Manhattan

 
 

 

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Project 2:
New York City Now--Places to See, Things To Do--Pop-UpBook Project

The third project emphasized research and writing literacy.

The children were given a booklet with a picture of the New York Skyline, maps, and other appropriate backgrounds on the inside of a folded 11 by 17 card stock paper.
This picture was on one side.
Pasted on the other side was a paper with lines.

Children were to paste a photograph of a building, place or other aspect of New York City life which was pasted on top of the background as a pop-up picture.
The pictures were secured with a thin piece of card stock paper folded like an accordian.

 

 

 

 


One edge of the paper was pasted to the background, the other to their picture.


The photographs can be downloaded from the internet and used as an educational material.

Ideally, children would take 2 or 3 trips around the city with a digital camera and photograph different cultural sites. When this method is used, the project should be done at a later time in the program.

 

 

 

 

 

The research and writing components of this project were to be done throughout the week.

The children enjoyed decorating their booklets, front, middle and back.

 

 

 

 

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PROJECT 3:
The Time-Machine Project

A box from the movie theater was used as a base in this project.
On one side of the box is a picture of the New York City skyline as it appears today.
This side is indented, with styrofoam pasted at the bottom as a base.

Pasted on the other side is a drawing of a street as it might have looked during the 1650's in New Amsterdam. This side of the exhibit piece is flat.

 

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A small section on the side represented the "time machine" which would take the figures that the children decorated back to New Amsterdam.

 

The children used decorated figures on sticks, or pasted on the the exhibit.

They used stickers and markers to decorate the boxes.

The children were provided small pieces of papers to write something they enjoy about New York Now, and what they would want to learn about New Amsterdam.
This represented the writing literacy portion of the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PROJECT 4:

LEARNING MUSEUM WORDS AND CONCEPTS

 

The children learned many museum words and concepts when working on a "Museum Dictionary." This was in preparation for
a presentation/exhibit of their work to be held at the end of the
year. The entire project was a combination of art work and academics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PROJECT 5:

 

Jose and Cosette worked with the children in the construction of a NEW AMSTERDAM MONOPOLOY GAME.

 

 

 

Jose helps the children learn the rules for Monopoly in preparation for the construction of their own New Amsterdam version.

 

 

Construction of the game

 

 

 

Other projects included stories, drawings and paper towel quilts.

 

 

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