Learning From - The Museum of International Folk Art

We've all enjoyed visiting museums and many of us have taken our students there on field trips. My next few posts are a reminder that museums, both secular and Judaic, are excellent sources of ideas for creative learning activities.
I recently visited the outstanding Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
www.internationalfolkart.org There, a major exhibition entitled "Multiple Visions: A Common Bond," presents 100,000 folk art objects of all sizes, shapes, materials, and countries of origin. This fantastically diverse collection was given to the Museum by the collector, Alexander Girard. Girard also designed the unique display settings and determined the placement of each object in a whimsical, thought- provoking way. From floor to ceiling, everywhere you look, there is an intriguing, colorful example of folk art. Needless to say, this marvelous exhibition is very popular with school groups. Their "Folk Art To Go!" program coordinates visits from schools and offers Teacher In-Service presentations.

The docent who guided our tour group through the exhibition, described several techniques used to help students connect with a few of the hundreds of items on display. In general, students are introduced to portions of the Girard Collection which share a common theme such as transportation toys, the village market, mermaids, Trees of Life, dollhouses, or musicians.

Within a themed group, students are given cards with a description of a specific folk art piece. The students are asked to find the pieces described on their cards. This task encourages students to pay close attention to detail and to compare various pieces which may be similar in many ways.

In our classrooms, this type of matching exercise can be used to review a unit or several units of study. In its simplest form, the descriptions may be listed on an activity sheet where students search their textbooks and find the matching item to write on their sheets. As a more engaging approach, write the descriptions on cards which students carry with them as they search the classroom for pictures or actual objects which match the descriptions on their cards.

Example: Description on the card - "This Holiday begins the Hebrew month of Tishrei. We are commanded to hear the sound of the Shofar. It is tradtional to eat apples and honey."
Students match that description to a picture of a Rosh HaShana celebration or to a Rosh HaShana greeting card that symbolizes the Holiday.

A matching "search" can be an active way to review several months' study of the Holiday cycle (or any other curricular topic) at one time.

At the Museum of International Folk Art, in an additional variation of the matching technique, students were given a picture of a detail found on a particular object of folk art. They were asked to find the object with that detail in a display containing numerous objects. This activity encouraged students to observe, compare, and select a single object from a complex whole.

Similarly, in a Hebrew School class, students may be given a key word or phrase from a prayer that they've studied, and be asked to identify the prayer in their prayerbooks (Siddurim) which contains that word or phrase. This is an effective way to focus students' attention on the different meanings and messages of the prayers - meanings and messages that may have been overshadowed in their initial efforts to master the reading skills associated with the prayer texts.

In Judaic Studies classes, the textbooks often contain many explanatory pictures. As in the Museum, actual picture details can be matched to pictures in the book for an activity designed
to help students review chapters by discussing selected pictures.

Watch future posts for more interactive learning activities inspired by the Museum of International Folk Art.