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Teachers, history club coordinators, and scout troop leaders: Following
are several activities corresponding to the "Wisconsin Stories"
episodes on Wisconsin Public Television. Some of these activities refer
to publications available through the State Historical Society's Office
of School Services. In other activities, we've provided the activity
as a PDF file. To find out when the next program airs, check our program
listing.
Cornhusking Activities
- Watch the premiere of "Wisconsin Stories" with your History Club
or class.
- Think about this: What fun things would you do if you didn't have
soccer, basketball, choir, drama, or skateboarding, or any of the other
fun things you do? Would your competitive spirit be challenged by a
CORNHUSKING COMPETITION?
- Organize a field trip to a local farm. A great time to do this would
be in late August. A network of corn producers in your part of the state
can be found by contacting your County
Extension Agent. Organize a competition to see who can be the fastest
husker, the "wildest" pitch, the loudest thunk. Invent your own category!
See who will be the Omer Koop of your group! You can even create mock
newspaper headlines celebrating the winners of your contest.
- Make your own cornhusk dolls by following these instructions
(PDF). These dolls are based on Penobscot Dolls illustrated by Frank
G. Speck in the mid-1900's. You will need the husks from one or two
ears of corn for a 6" doll. This should take you about 1 hour to make.
Make clothes
(PDF) for the doll and learn the Iriquois
story (PDF) explaining why the dolls have no faces.
- As you can see from the show, corn and hops were very significant
to Wisconsin's agricultural growth. As agriculture grew more sophisticated
and developed in different areas of Wisconsin, farmers planted lots
of different cash crops. Many of these crops later spread elsewhere
in the state where they continued to be grown commercially, while some
other crops declined.
- "Agriculture
in Your County" (PDF) is a great activity for your class, club,
or scout troop, showing the counties where certain crops were first
raised for commercial use and the decades when they first emerged as
cash crops. Use the map "Where
Crops were First Grown for Market" (PDF) as a tool and investigate
the crops that were originally grown in your county!
Use Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin for additional activities.
Learn more about this workbook at SHSW's
Web site.
- Changing Workforce Assignment, page 5
- Page 37: "Changes in Work," p. 31: "Foodways"
- Read Excerpt on p.37-38
- Consider Exhibit Topic: "Who did it? Who does it?" Exploratory Question
1
- Interview Questions on p. 40 Cornhusk Doll-Making Project.
- Recommended Reading: "American Girl—Toys Through Time"
- Hey scouts! By participating in these "corny" activities, you can
earn credit for "Across Generations", "Local Lore,"
"My Heritage", and "Now & Then" badges.
Hops Activities
- In other parts of state: 40 of 72 UWEX County Agents—Coop Hop
Labs
- Partnerships with educational program materials available for HS Agriculture
classes activity from SHSW's Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin.
- Activity Page 41: What brought people here to work? (Interviews in
nursing homes, senior centers) Download "What
Brought People to Work?" (PDF). This activity is adapted from
the "Changes in Work" actiity, which appears in the SHSW publication
Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin.
- Conduct archive searches via Internet, library, or local historical
society
This activity can be used to expand some of the concepts addressed
in the hops story.
This elementary-level activity originally appeared in Badger History
Bulletin and was adapted for the "Wisconsin Stories" outreach
initiative. Its original author is Susan Glenz of from the Chippewa Valley
Museum in Eau Claire.
Everyone living in Wisconsin originally came from somewhere else. Through
this activity, we can learn about the experience of being an immigrant,
which requires the traveler to plan for the journey, to pack, and to make
difficult decisions. People from many cultures have created trunks or
other containers to hold their belongings while they travel. The size
of the carrying device limits the number of personal possessions, mementos,
and material goods brought from home to begin a new life.
- To personalize the immigrant experience
- To create opportunities for family communication
- To present the choices facing an immigrant that require problem-solving
skills
- To investigate materials that tell about the past, creating a concrete
expression for the abstract concept of "the immigration experience"
Wisconsin has long been been a land of immigrants, from migratory American
Indians, nineteenth-century Yankees and Canadians to African Americans,
early twentieth-century Eastern Europeans, Latinos and Asians. Many immigrants
gave up everything from their original homes to come to this country.
In the nineteenth century, passengers brought very little with them because
the shipping lines charged them for every parcel brought on board. Guidebooks
offered suggestions for necessities, and immigrants used them to determine
which items to bring. Immigrants often bought or made trunks in which
to pack their belongings. When Hmong refugees came to the United States
in the 1970s, they left their homeland with only those things they could
carry in the homemade baskets and baby carriers they wore on their backs.
1. How much do you understand about immigration? What's the difference
between an immigrant and a refugee? With your scout leader or teacher,
discuss whether immigrants and refugees still come to Wisconsin and why.
2. Brainstorm about the contents of an immigrant's trunk, then discuss
what you would pack today if you were moving and had limited space. Consider
the following reasons for bringing certain items:
- to remind someone of home
- to remind someone of family
- to entertain someone on a trip
- to be useful
- to tell other people about who someone is.
3. Talk to your family about what that you'd take if you had to move.
If you or any of your troop members or classmates have moved recently,
have them share the difficult decisions their families had to make.
4. Using your school media center, public library, or local historical
society, research pictures of immigrants from any era. List the items
that immigrants brought and the containers in which they brought them.
Many local historical societies have collections of letters from Wisconsin
immigrants describing their voyages, the advice they received, and descriptions
of the things they brought with them.
5. Create a personal trunk! This activity can be done on your own, in
pairs, or as teams. Pick a standard size shipping box (26 by 18 by 16
inches high) for the trunk, or create a carrier that reflects a different
culture, such as a basket or clay pot.
6. Decide what you need: clothes, blankets, toys, kitchen utensils, books,
photos, keepsakes, food, and others. Use real things when possible, but
you can create fakes for items that are too valuable to bring from home.
Decide to make the box look old or new. Decorate the box as a trunk. Use
magic markers, crayons, or stickers to simulate "transport stamps" from
checkpoints along the way.
7. Display the trunks, and ask each other to explain your choices, either
during a presentation or as part of the display.
See if your local historical society, museum or library is willing to
display the trunks for a period of time.
If your local museum or historical society has an immigration collection,
visit it to view immigrant trunks and their contents. Read copies of original
immigrant letters.
Interview an older friend or relative about choices they have made about
moving to different places. Compare those choices with your own.
To find out about resources for this project in your part of the state,
check out the
online local history directory.
- Research top-40 bands you like. Can you find roots in Wisconsin?
- Compile a CD of songs with accordion influence (K-6: Backstreet Boys,
Britney, N'Sync; 7-12: Counting Crows, Barenaked Ladies, Sheryl Crow)
- Research: What does it take to get a song published?
- Write and record a song about your town, your state, and/or a favorite
local event
- See if you can get a popular local band to perform your song.
Office of School
Services
http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/oss/
County Extension
Agent
http://www1.uwex.edu/ces/cty/
Celebrating
Everyday Life in Wisconsin
http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/publications/oss/celebrating.html
Online
Local History Directory
http://www.shsw.wisc.edu/localhistory/directory/index.asp
(download free Acrobat
Reader)
"Agriculture in Your County" (PDF)
map:
"Where Crops were First Grown for Market" (PDF)
"What
Brought People to Work?"
instructions
for making corn dolls
instructions
for making corn doll clothes
"Why
the Cornhusk Dolls Have No Face," an Iriquois story
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