Click here to download a PDF file of the complete Strong National Museum of Play School Lessons Catalog

Grades 6, 7, and 8

SOCIAL STUDIES

Birth of an Industrial Nation

What was it like to be an immigrant competing for a job on an assembly line? Students visit our working assembly line and take on the role of a toy automobile factory president, efficiency expert, foreman, or line worker. They run time trials, in teams, to explore the advantages and disadvantages of the assembly-line process and discuss how mass production changed daily life.
1 hour SS: 1, 3, 4, 5 LA: 1, 3, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Coming to America

How do contemporary immigration issues compare with those of the past? Students participate in the Immigration Game, a highly interactive experience where the choices they make affect their options as immigrants. Following the game, students become immigrants or on-the-spot reporters as they role-play the experiences of immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century and today. They then work in teams to rewrite the rules of the game they played to reflect what they have learned. This experience builds skills in active listening and note taking.
1 1/2 hours SS: 1, 3, 4, 5 LA: 1, 2, 3, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Fashions, Foods, and Fads: Exploring Geography

What does geography have to do with what we wear? How do the artifacts of popular culture reflect the concepts of global interdependence? How would our lives be different if we could only buy foods that were native to New York State? These questions and more are the focus of this museum-wide quest where students are divided into expedition teams to gather data about the things they use each day. After collecting the data, each team will create a graphic representation of its findings that will lead to a discussion about interdependence around the globe.
1 1/2 hours SS: 3 LA: 1, 3
Available Tuesday through Friday

The Immigration Experience

What was it like to be a part of an immigrant family at the beginning of the 20th century? Using props, costumes and scripts, students learn through role-play as they reenact Immigration Recognition Day, a historical event that took place in Rochester, New York, in the 1920s. Students learn where immigrants to this country came from, the challenges they faced, and how it felt to be a newcomer in a strange land.
1 hour SS: 1, 3, 4, 5 LA: 1, 3, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

LANGUAGE ARTS

NEW! Debate for a Day

This workshop allows students to hone tools of debate and improve listening, speaking, and thinking skills. Following a brief orientation, the museum provides primary-source documents and hands-on experiences for students to develop arguments either for or against selected topics. Students work in teams to gather and present information that supports their case.
4 hours, 9:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. LA: 1, 3, 4 SS: 5
$8.25 per student 100 student maximum
Available Tuesday through Friday by advanced reservation only

Learn more about Debate for a Day!

Fractured Fairy Tales: Playing with Story Elements

In traditional fairy tales, readers learn that Hope + Heroes = Happiness. What happens to this formula when we fracture these tales? Amid backdrops for some of our favorite tales in Reading Adventureland’s Fairy Tale section, students will be inspired to use a variety of literary landscapes to fracture favorite tales in unique and creative ways. Students retell favorite stories adding their own new twists. They may tell the story from a new perspective, explore the impacts of cause and effect, or introduce a new character. Familiarity with fairy tale themes and motifs is recommended. Activities are adjusted accordingly for older students.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 3 Arts: 1, 2
Available Wednesday through Friday

Objects Alive: Playing with Personification

What would a toy train daydream about? Who would a yo-yo choose to be friends with? Students will never look at inanimate objects in the same way again after participating in this lively lesson focusing on personification and character development. Curriculum connections abound as students use both writing and drawing to bring the museum’s renowned collections alive.
11/2 hours LA: 2, 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

R.S.V.P. to a Most Peculiar Invitation

You and your students are cordially invited to a truly nonsensical house-warming party in Reading Adventureland’s Upside-Down Nonsense House. Bring your scarves and mittens to help “warm” the house and “shoot the breeze” while trying to make sense out of a topsy-turvy world where Life – Logic = Laughs. Students learn that wordplay is the key to nonsense as they engage in activities that extend their understanding of homonyms and homographs, idioms and rhythms, verses and rhymes, and more.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 3 Arts: 1
Available Wednesday through Friday

Shipwrecked! The Adventure Game

Character development and story structure are just two of the many literary skills that take on life-size proportions when students discover the Adventure section of Reading Adventureland. Working in small groups, students build their own adventure story based on the choices they make and the crew of characters they create. Using a ship’s log, they keep track of their adventure. Back at school they can write the full tale of the characters and settings they imagined.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 4 Arts: 2
Available Wednesday through Friday

Sleuth School

School is in session in Reading Adventureland! Students attend a class in the Mystery Mansion School of Artful Sleuthing to learn and practice the skills literary detectives like Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes use to solve mysteries. Students need a sharp eye and a quick mind as they learn to make careful observations, collect and interpret evidence, discover relationships, and draw conclusions.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 3, 4 MST: 1, 7
Available Wednesday through Friday

Spellbinders:  The Wizardry of Words

Why do we call a captivating book “spellbinding” or “enchanting”? Perhaps it’s because writers weave words in the same way that sorcerers cast spells. In this entrancing experience, students explore how great fantasy writers create worlds with words and use techniques that transport us to new places. Students use excerpts from classic fantasy literature to guide their exploration of the Fantasy section in Reading Adventureland. Then they try their hand at creating fantastic worlds of their own through the wizardry of words.
1 1/2 hours LA: 1, 2, 3 Arts: 3
Available Wednesday through Friday

NEW! Inside Stories: Unmasking the Superhero

After exploring the concept of character development in the American Comic Book Heroes: The Battle of Good vs. Evil exhibit, students consider the everyday challenges that superheroes face. Students investigate with their peers what it might really be like to be “behind the mask” and then develop their own heroic dialogue bubbles in an activity sure to strengthen reading skills.
1 hour LA: 2, 3
Available Tuesday through Friday beginning October 19, 2009

MATH AND SCIENCE

Engineering Play and Design

Teachers become the observers as students actively engage in play-inspired problem solving, team building, and engineering design activities inspired by state-of-the-art interactives in the Field of Play exhibit. Several fun and open-ended problems will be posed for students to tackle using their best critical thinking, their most effective communication skills, and their most innovative design solutions. This experience is all about teamwork!
2 hours MST: 1, 2, 5, 7 LA: 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

NEW! Mindbender Mansion Expedition

Don’t let your students miss Mindbender Mansion, a fun-filled exhibit that stretches the mind and hones students’ abilities to think critically, solve problems, identify patterns, and use logical reasoning. Throughout their exploration of the exhibit, students work in chaperoned groups to develop strategies to solve everyday problems. 1 hour MST: 1, 6
Available Tuesday through Friday, June 1–June 11, 2010 only Book now! Only available 9 days!

Playing with Physics

What do force, gravity, and motion have to do with play? This science-based experience is designed to help students put their knowledge of physics into action. Students make observations and explain their thinking as they investigate the forces at work in the Field of Play exhibit. This experience allows students to work with and demonstrate their understanding of some of the basic concepts in physics; it can be adapted to meet the needs and interests of all young scientists.
1 1/2 hours MST: 1, 4, 5, 7 LA: 4
Available Tuesday through Friday

Predators and Protection:  The Art of the Butterfly

Let your students enter the fabulous Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden® with a palette of colors, a keen eye for design, and a splash of curiosity, and they will return with some surprising discoveries! Students explore the concept of camouflage through observation and their own creations. They then become predators and protectors as they learn and play through a movement game that brings the colorful and amazing art of the butterfly world alive.
1 1/2 hours MST: 1 Arts: 1
Available Tuesday through Friday

NEW! Backyard Ecology Labs
Awesome Autotrophs

Have you ever seen a carnivorous plant? Come and investigate our garden’s immobile warriors. Explore life from the perspective of a plant and see how some plants obtain the food and nutrients they need, reproduce, and keep predators away—all from the comfort of their own flower beds! Field study guides are provided for note taking.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available October through January, Tuesday through Friday (maximum 30 students)

Deciphering Decomposers

Experience a truly unique way of investigating ecology and the delicate balance of backyard science. Students learn about nutrient recycling au natural as we delve into the rather odiferous lives of detritivores. They embark on a soil safari and search for nature’s cleaning crew in the ground right below their feet!
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available October through January, Tuesday through Friday (maximum 30 students)

Inspecting Insectivores

Bugs for breakfast? While this experience may not be for the faint of heart, it’s sure to engage the scientifically curious. Students take a close look at animals that love to munch on bugs and get to meet a live scorpion. Students also observe how certain feeding behaviors have impacted insect anatomy and learn clever ways that different insects have evolved to catch bugs.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available October through January, Tuesday through Friday (maximum 30 students)

Perplexed by Pollinators

Learn why pollinators are so critical to humans, ways plants and their pollinators are linked, and how plants and pollinators have evolved to more efficiently interact. Students explore the concepts of interdependence and co-evolution, as well as some big questions about the not-so-big organisms that live in our own backyards.
1 hour MST: 1, 6, 7 LA: 1 Arts: 1
Available October through January, Tuesday through Friday (maximum 30 students)