Framework Connections

Arts Connections

Week One: 2-D - Landscape watercolor painting - Using photographs or prints of paintings, children can use small frames to choose a section of the photo or reprint, copy it on watercolor paper by sketching first and then painting it with watercolor paints. Children can be asked to use the frame to zoom in on a specific geographic feature found in the photo or reprint. This is in conjunction with the first activity in Land and Water.

Week Two: 3-D -Sumerian figures - Although Sumerian figures as described below were carved from marble, children could be instructed create similar figures from clay or from carving a soft material such as soap. From H.W. Janson's "History of Art". The groups of figures from Tell Amar were carved about 2700-2500 BC. "The tallest, about 30" high represents Abu, the god of vegetation; the second largest, a mother goddess; the others, priests an worshipers. The two deities are distinguished from the rest not only by their size but by the larger diameter of the pupils of their eyes, although the eyes of all the figures are enormous. Their insistent stare is emphasized by colored inlays, which are still in place. The entire group must have stood in the cella of the Abu temple, the priests and worshipers confronting the two gods and communicating with them through their eyes. 'Representation' here had a very direct meaning: the gods were believed to be present in their images, and the statues of the worshipers served as stand-ins for the persons they portrayed, offering prayers or transmitting messages to the deity in their stead." This is in conjunction with the teacher directed, model study of Sumeria.

Week Three: 3-D - Exploration of Sumerian Architecture - From H.W. Janson's "History of Art" - "The dominant role of the temple as the center of both spiritual and physical existence is strikingly conveyed by the layout of Sumerian cities. The houses clustered about a sacred area that was a vast architectural complex embracing not only shrines but workshops, storehouses, and scribes quarters as well. In their midst, on a raised platform, stood the temple of the local god. These platforms soon reached the height of true man-made mountains, comparable to the pyramids of Egypt in the immensity of effort required and in their effect as great landmarks towering above the featureless plain. They were known as ziggurats." The teacher may lead an examination of Sumerian city layout in general and the geometry of the ziggurat, in specific. One model of a ziggurat could be constructed by the class. This is in conjunction with the teacher directed, model study of Sumeria.

Week Four - 2-D - Papermaking - In support of the Nile study, the teacher can instruct children about the history of paper and the Egyptian's use of papyrus. Subsequently, children can make their own paper.
3-D - Pyramids - The teacher can instruct children in the different characteristics of solid geometric forms - cylinder, cone, pyramid, cube, sphere. Children could be asked to construct a pyramid from a single sheet of paper. This is in conjunction with the research study of the student groups.

Week Five - 2-D - "The Big Wave" watercolor paintings. Students may be asked to chose a sentence from Pearl Buck's The Big Wave in which she describes the ocean. Buck's descriptions vary widely through out the book. Using that sentence, children will create a watercolor painting to visualize the sentence. This is in conjunction with reading The Big Wave.
Some suggested sentences for the watercolors inspired by Pearl Buck's The Big Wave

• "It rushed toward the shore, green and solid, frothing into white at its edges. It rose higher and higher lifting hands and claws."
•  "It groaned and split open and the cold water fell into the middle of the boiling rocks."
• "Before their eyes was the ocean swelling and stirring under the evening wind."
• "On days when the sky was bright and winds mild, the ocean lay so calm and blue that it was hard to believe that it could be cruel and angry."
• "The sea lay dead and calm as though oil had been poured upon the waters. It was a purple gray, suave and beautiful."
• "Steam burst out and lifted the ocean high into the sky in a big wave."
• "In a few seconds, before their eyes, the wave had grown and come nearer and nearer, higher and higher."
• "The purple rim of the ocean seemed to lift and rise against the clouds."
• "The sea lay dead and calm as though oil had been poured upon the waters. It was a purple gray, suave and beautiful."
• "The air was filled with it's roar and shout. It rushed over the flat, still waters of the ocean."
• "It was hard to believe that on the surface the water was blue and warm and underneath it was green and cold."

3-D - Basketweaving - The teacher may instruct children in the various cultures who use baskets and the ways in which baskets are used by a culture. Children may construct a simple basket. This is in conjunction with the research study of the student groups.

Week 6 - Hudson River School - The teacher may instruct children about the Hudson River School of painters. Focus will be on how a culture sees themselves through the visual arts. Children may use cray-pas to create their own landscape "painting" including foreground, middleground and background. This is in preparation for creating visuals for the research groups' display boxes.

Weeks Six and Seven - 2-D - Students will create display boxes for their river research.

Directions for creating display boxes:

• Take a sheet of 18"X24" oak tag type stock in an agreeable color.
• Fold in a 2" lip on the long side of the oak tag.
• Fold it in half down the short side.
• Cut on the middle line only for the two inch lip. This way you can make a corner.
• Children can decorate the inside of the fold by making drawings or "fact boxes" and pasting them to the oak tag. The can also store their work inside the oak tag like a folder, when they are not working on it.
• Cut a square piece of drawing paper large enough to cover the bottom of the corner.
• Paste the edges of the square drawing paper to the 2" lip of the oak tag.
• Fold the square drawing paper along the diagonal so it will fold up into the oak tag when the display book is closed.
• Staple each finished corner to 3 other corners. Leave two corners unstapled so that the book can close.
• While open just paper clip the two unstapled corner edges so that the book will remain free standing.

Music  

Weeks One - Eight - Each week the teacher will introduce children to a different song or musical piece from the different regions of the world which their research groups are studying. Suggestions: "Sixteen Miles on the Erie Canal", "Red River Valley", "Let the River Run", "A Month in the Brazilian Rainforest" - ambient sound from the Amazon, sitar music from India, "Up the Lazy River", etc.

Language Arts

The Language Arts objectives comprise many of the learning standards of language, literature, composition and media.

• The students should keep a learning log of new vocabulary with definitions. The teacher could alternatively create word posters as new words come up in the study of rivers, ancient civilizations and Land and Water.
• Students will learn about the writing systems of the cultures they research. What tools were used to write? What surfaces were written on?
• Students will list and categorize important dates and events and understand the sequence of historic events.
• Students will read examples of ancient texts in English, including excerpts from the Epic of Gilgamesh (Sumerian).
• Students will write creative pieces (poems and/or prose) such as an invented creation myth or a story about every day life along the river in a specific culture.
• Students will view and appreciate ancient texts in their original scripts and be able to identify cuneiform, hieroglyphics and other scripts.
• Students will read poetry from a variety of sources about river-related topics.
• Students will research a river on which an ancient culture flourished.
• Students will be able to write about the course of a river from its source to its mouth using geographic terms and describe what a traveler might find along that river.
• Students will generate questions before beginning their research.
• Students will develop a rubric for assessing their creative and expository compositions according to the standards set forth in the classroom
• Students will use a variety of media for the oral presentation of their reports, for example: writing, maps, charts, diagrams, web pages, video, Powerpoint or other software, paintings, murals, collages, drawings, etc. 
• Teacher and/or students will read Paddle to the Sea (see bibliography) and encourage class discussion about the text and how it relates to the study.
• Teacher will read origin myths of a variety of ancient cultures and students will appreciate the similarities and differences in world views.
• Students will read The Big Wave and conduct reading discussions about the text and how it relates to the river study.
• Teacher will present weekly poems about unit-related material for appreciation and/or memorization.

Mathematics Strands

#2 Patterns, Functions, and Algebra

Mapping

• Use map scales to calculate rivers' distances.
• Calculate distance from Boston to ancient civilization.
  e.g. one inch represents five miles, so two inches represents ten miles

#3 Geometry

Mapping

• Graph points in first quadrant of the coordinate plane and identify coordinate points. Use maps and coordinates to find river valley. Using coordinates make maps to represent actual place.
• Use longitude and latitude terms talk about parallel and perpendicular. Use map and scale to find distance of rivers.
  *also see integration in The Arts

#4 Data analysis, Statistics, and Probability

• Use data collected throughout research (i.e. population, river facts: delta size, volume, and length) to compare information that can be charted or graphed.
• Have a discussion on likelihood or unlikelihood of how people would survive with or without the river.

Geography/History Standards Connections

Listed below are basic questions that can be addressed in classroom discussions

II. MOVEMENT

How did the people of this culture use the river for transportation?

How did they use the river for agriculture? e.g. irrigation, flooding, etc.

How was trade enhanced by the proximity of the river?

Did the river act as a barrier to trade, movement or as a boundary?

III. HUMAN ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTIONS

Why types of dwellings did each culture live in? for example: Sumerians made homes of reeds from the riverbank since they were plentiful.

What were the roles of each member of the family in each culture?

What types of tools were created and necessary for the people in each culture?

How did new discoveries make life easier for each culture? For example: Sumerians invented the wheel.

What did each culture use for an exchange of goods? For example: the Egyptians used grain.

How did the religion and rituals play a much larger part in the role of settled communities than for the nomads? For example: India - priests/ sacred temple

What style of government did each civilization have? For example: Sumerians had independent rulers who controlled the city and land around it.

IV. REGIONS

What natural resources were available near these rivers to make an ideal place to settle? For example: Fertile Crescent had wild wheat, sheep, barley, and goats on the land.

What animals and plants live in and around the river?

V. LOCATION

Where does river water come from?

Where do rivers begin?

How do rivers grow?

How do rivers shape the land?

How do people use rivers?

What events may have led to the need to write and why did the need to write arise? ( history of writing)

How did rivers bring different cultures together?

STANDARDS 7 AND 8

GEOGRAPHY

** Indicates Major Study

A. Recognition of continents

• use of globes, flat maps

B. Locate major rivers on each continent

1. North America

**Mississippi River

Other Important Rivers - Yukon, Hudson, and Colorado

2. South America

**Amazon River

3. Europe

Seine, Rhine, Danube, and Volga Rivers

4. Asia

**Yangtze River

**Indus River

Ganges River

**Tigris and Euphrates

5. Africa

**Nile River

Congo River

6. Australia

Murray and Darling River

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