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Summary and Objective
Students will understand that the regional fair provided an important social venue for rural Americans as well as an opportunity for farmers, housewives and families to showcase accomplishments in homemaking arts, crafts, crops, and animal husbandry.
Teaching Plan
Step 1.
Lead a discussion on the following: Have you ever been to an agricultural fair? What displays and exhibitions related to farming did you see? View the items in the digital collection and discuss how these items/activities were important to rural Americans.
Step 2.
Using the digital items and / or students' own attnedance at a fair, brainstorm a list of fair activities and exhibits that might have been most important to men. Make a similar list for women. Make another for boys and girls.
Step 3.
Think about and discuss the role each item played in the daily life of a rural family. Example: steer and oxen were bred as work animals long before agriculture was mechanized. How did they work on the farm? Food had to be preserved to feed families over long winters. How might a farm family preserve food and how would it be displayed?
Step 4.
Break the class into teams of three or four. Imagine that each team is a rural family looking forward to the upcoming fair. Decide how each team will exhibit its family's entries into the fair events. Create a detailed poster or diarama to share each team's entries.
Step 5.
Write a description of the exhibits to be given as oral presentations to judges of each event. Describe how your family raised, trained, sewed, baked or otherwise prepared the exhibit over the recent planting, growing season. Share with the class.
Step 6.
Extension 1: Design a poster for a regional fair based on class exhibits. What events will attract the most people? What social events will you all look forward to? Create rubrics for judging the various entries then stage a classroom fair featuring the posters and diaramas. Ask another class to judge the products and award ribbons for achievement.
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