ATYP
ON DEMAND PLUS
Lesson 1 What is memory?
© ATYP 2021
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ATYP
LESSON 1
ON DEMAND PLUS
Lesson focus This exercise is designed to encourage students to connect with their own memories and show the value in sharing them. Through listening and telling stories about significant objects, students gain empathy for the point of view of others. The importance of oral history will be developed through this shared experience.
Students will • develop an understanding that objects can relate to memories from the past; • form connections between the text Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and their own experiences; • make valid inferences using the information in the text and their own prior knowledge. Literacy & Drama concepts: • Mime
Objects Memory Oral history
Vocabulary Story Significant Important Special
Resources Video 1: Egg Memories. Video 2: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge Reading. Treasure box containing a variety of objects and photographs that are significant to you. (e.g., a photo from your first day of school or a childhood toy). Egg prop to be included in the treasure box (alternatives - a small ball or make an egg-like shape out of paper). Egg Memories worksheet. Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. Assessment opportunities Monitor students’ knowledge of memories, what they are and how they are formed.
© ATYP 2021
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ATYP
LESSON 1
ON DEMAND PLUS
Activity 1: Egg Memories Note: If it’s more appropriate for creating memories, you can use another object such as a shell or balloon as the stimulus for describing a memory. 1. Ask the students, what is a memory? You can put up a definition such as: Memory: Someone recalling (or remembering) facts or events that have happened in the past. 2. Write what the students think a memory is on the whiteboard to come back to later. 3. Sit the class in a circle and place the treasure box in the centre. Explain that inside are objects from your past when you were younger. Open the box and display each item to the class, describing why each item is valuable to you. Introduce words that denote significance such as ‘important’ and ‘special’. Ask: Why are objects from the past so special to us? Are the memories they hold the same for everybody? 4. Pull out an egg from the box. Say the line: “This egg reminds me of…” and add a personal memory (e.g., the time I went to the farm, an Easter egg hunt, cooking with grandma). Pass the egg around the circle to give each student an opportunity to share a memory. You may need to side-coach and help some students with their response. Try to encourage each student to be original and not repeat another story.
© ATYP 2021
5. If you don’t have time to go around the whole class, get students to describe their memory to someone else in a pair or three. Then, get the students to come back to the circle and share one memory for each pair/three or just a few memories from the whole group. 6. Introduce the drama concept of mime as a way of acting out a story through body motions without the use of speech. Explain that students will be miming each others’ egg memories. As an example, model unwrapping an Easter egg and gobbling it quickly. You can also view Video 1: Egg Memories, showing the ATYP Teaching Artist and students miming their egg memory. 7. Ask students to turn around and face the outside of the circle, then close their eyes. This strategy is used so that students can engage in the moment of their mime without the pressure of others watching them. Describe one of the memories that was told while students do a simple mime to match the story. Remind students to not look at anyone else. You can describe a few memories and have students act them out, depending on the responses and level of engagement. 8. Using the Egg Memories worksheet, students individually complete an egg portrait by drawing a picture of their memory inside the egg.
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ATYP
LESSON 1
ON DEMAND PLUS
Activity 2: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge 1. Introduce the cover of Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and ask students to see, think and wonder about the story’s content. You can either read the book to the class or use the reading in Video 2: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge Reading. 2. After reading the book, discuss the importance of memory to Miss Nancy and her friends at the nursing home. Focus on the reply from each character when the boy asks “What’s a memory?”:
Ask students: Were all answers the same? Why/ why not? 3. For the next lesson, ask students to bring in an item that is significant to them. This is an optional exercise for the next exercise, Gifts for Miss Nancy. You can provide objects they can use for this activity if it’s too difficult for students in your class to bring in objects. Extension (Years 1 and 2): Students write their egg memory as a recount.
“It’s something you remember” “Something warm, my child, something warm” “Something from long ago, me lad, something from long ago” “Something that makes you cry, my boy, something that makes you cry” “Something that makes you laugh, my darling, something that makes you laugh” “Something as precious as gold, young man, something as precious as gold”
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