Thinking Exercises in the Look,
Listen and Learn Classroom
Meant for kids and their families, this educational resource gives families numerous opportunities to
learn as they look together at one or more of the Museum's photographs.
One or more 'thinking exercises' are
made available for various sections of the Museum. These exercises may be used
independently, or they may be used in
conjunction with other materials or exhibitions of the same or similar topic
found elsewhere within the Museum. They may also be used as a basis for further
discussions or study.
These exercises allow children to employ their imagination, to place
themselves in various situations in which their ancestors found themselves many years ago.
They may get to play the role of one or more people in
a particular photograph and both ask and answer the questions that are posed to
them. Of course, you
or your children may wish to make up your own questions. There are no answers
supplied to the questions posed by the Museum, as
there are no right answers or wrong answers.
In these thinking exercises, one has the opportunity to do some creative thinking. Hopefully,
the participant(s) in this exercise might find some relevance in their own life
as they do these exercises. They may be important in understanding more about
the history of their
own family and of history in general.
Thinking Exercises
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Postcards from Home
Upper floor
Exercise: Is This My
Family?Many of us have
photographs of individuals or families in our photo albums from pre-war
Europe, but often times we really don't know who the people in these
photos are. Does your family have such photographs? If so, can the people
in the photographs be part of your family? |
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Immigration
From the Pale to the Golden Land: How Our
Families Came to America, Main floor
Make believe you are a would-be immigrant as
you board a steamer ship that will take you across the Atlantic Ocean to
the port of Ellis Island. You must get from your hometown to the port
where the ship is that will take you to Ellis Island. You must then board
the ship and take a ten-day trans-Atlantic voyage. Finally, you must
disembark, enter Ellis Island's Grand Hall and pass through the difficult
inspection process....
Exercise: What Was It Like To Emigrate?
Exercise: What Was Ellis Island Like?
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Living in America: The Jewish Experience
Main floor
Exercise: What Would You Ask?
Many of us who become
interested in learning more about our family's history often wait until
it's too late to ask our family members questions about their lives. If
you could go back in time and ask each member of your family only ten
questions each, what would you ask? |
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The Yiddish World
Second floor
Spend some time at the Museum's Yiddish Art Theatre of the 1920s and 30s.
What was a Yiddish play like?
What can you tell about a play's characters or a scene in a play, simply by studying a single
photograph and thinking about what is occurring.
Exercise: So You Want To Be
An Actor?
Exercise:
Creating a Scene (at the Yiddish Art Theatre) |
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