Exploring the Past and Present through Collage and Modes of Communication

Anjeanette Tournillon and Maggie Doussan
Hynes UNO 1st Grade | Social Studies & Visual ArT

Ms. T and Ms. Doussan’s first grade science/social studies classes have been exploring the concepts of “long ago,” and “the present.” In order to help our students conceptualize the difference between the past and present, we decided to look at technology — specifically, telephones. Ms. T and Ms. Doussan had already introduced the concept of “long ago,” so we helped students further understand this concept by showing them videos of telephones from the 20th century - phones with curly chords, dials, and old fashioned rings. Then, we compared those phones to cell phones from the present day, encouraging their observations about how things have changed since before they were born. 

In first grade, we have been developing our skills of cutting, tearing and gluing over the course of the year. We used this lesson as an opportunity to create collages of two types of phone: a phone from the 20th century, and a cell phone. Students were asked to tear and cut paper in order to create phone dials, buttons, chords if they were assigned the phone from “long ago,” and apps, buttons and chargers if they were assigned the phone from the present. At the end of class we were able to share our different phones and make comparisons between technology in the past and present.