Aug. 2, 2006: Mount Rushmore

The Mini Page is a syndicated, four-page tabloid written for young children found each Wednesday in the Rocky Mountain News. This issue of The Mini Page is available through the eEdition Archive to registered eEdition subscribers. Click here to learn about subscribing to the eEdition at no cost to you (for Colorado teachers).

Activities:

1. Draw a profile of someone who is important to you on a large piece of paper. Write a sentence under your drawing telling about the person.

2. Share a newspaper with several friends or family members. Have each person select a part of the newspaper: national news, local news, arts/entertainment or sports. Have each person circle the photos or names of three people in that section who should be honored in some way. Then have everyone share and discuss their choices.

3. Find photos of three characters in the newspaper comics pages who could be part of a "comics Mount Rushmore." Cut out comic strip frames showing the characters and paste them in a row on a sheet of paper. Share your pictures with family members and friends.

4. What tells you that sculptor Gutzon Borglum was (a) strong, (b) educated, (c) a good mathematician, and (d) a careful planner?

5. Use resource books and the Internet to learn more about Gutzon Borglum.
Use these questions to guide your research: When and where was Gutzon born? How did he become interested in art? Why did he choose to do large-scale sculptures? Where did he learn to do them? What smaller sculptures did he create?

This week's standards:

• Students understand that artists select and use subject matter, symbols and ideas to communicate meaning. (Art)
• Students identify works of art as belonging to particular cultures, times and places. (Visual Arts)
  
  

(standards by Dr. Sherrye D. Garrett, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi)