Settling Rochester

SPRING, 2005-2006

The settlers' journey led them to a new life in a new land.  Throughout this expedition, Kindergarteners journeyed to new understandings of what life was like for settlers of early Rochester in the late 1700's and early 1800's.  They grappled with the guiding questions "Why did people move here?" and "What did settlers have to do to survive?"  Through a series of writing projects, students demonstrated their understandings of settler food, travel, shelter, and home and hearth.  Students created landscape paintings of early Rochester with animated scenes of settler life positioned over the landscape.  In their writing, students used their senses to describe life as an early Rochesterian.  On Exhibition Night, Kindergarteners stepped into their images and took on the roles of settlers.  When tapped on the shoulder, they stepped out of the pose to describe to the audience what they could see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.