Activities by Grade Level
Middle School

Map It
The Same or Different?
New Hampshire Landscapes
    Interdisciplinary Extensions
    Connections to the Collection

Map It
The White Mountains
New Hampshire’s mountains are rich in history. The White Mountains are part of the Appalachian Mountain system.

Using the library or Internet, have your students find out more about the White Mountain National Forest.

• How much area does it cover?
• Is all of it in New Hampshire?
• Who administers (or takes care of) the area?
• Who uses the area?
• What is the highest point?
• Can people visit this point? How?
• Who was the first explorer to visit the area? When?
• What notches or canyons cut through the area?

Have students compile their findings into a one-page report.

New Hampshire History Topic: Boundaries/Natural Environment & People/Non-Governmental Groups

The Same or Different?
Compare and contrast the two landscape paintings by Jasper Cropsey. What similarities exist between the two? What differences? How are the two related?

New Hampshire History Topic: Self-Expression

Language Arts: Standard 2, Using artworks as catalysts for writing. (Employing organizational patterns)

Visual Arts: Standard 2, Identify and apply the elements of visual art and principles of design; Standard 3, Select and apply a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas

New Hampshire Landscapes
Grade – 6/7

Aim/Instructional Objectives

• Students will produce two landscape drawings. The first will depict their home and its surroundings. The second will depict the same site as it may have appeared 150 years ago. Each drawing will clearly depict foreground, middle ground and background elements.

See student examples >

Materials/Supplies Needed

• A sketch of their home and its environs (this should be done on site in the open air)
• Pencil
• 2 sheets of 12 x 18” white paper
• Assorted colored pencils
• Computer access to Currier Museums of Art web site

Length – (3) 1-hour class sessions

Procedure

1. Students will view paintings of landscapes in the Currier collection.
2. Students should discuss various aspects of these works including: choice of subject, time of day, quality of light, depth and aerial perspective, use of line, color and shadows/shading.
3. Have students pay particular attention to the foreground, middle ground and background in these works.
4. Students will then bring in a sketch of “their New Hampshire Landscape” which depicts their home and its surroundings.
5. Using this sketch as a guide, students will create a drawing on 12 x 18” paper in pencil. Drawings should include foreground, middle ground and background. The drawing should be completed with colored pencils to show time of day, aerial perspective and shadows/shading.
6. Students will now compare their contemporary landscape with those from the Currier collection paying note to changes due to growth and change.
7. Ask students to close their eyes and try to visualize their landscape as it might have appeared 150 years ago before these changes.
8. Students will then create another drawing depicting “their New Hampshire landscape” 150 years in the past.
9. When completed, students will view their two drawings and the drawings of others and discuss the similarities and differences in these works.

• Content Standard 1: Understanding and applying media, techniques and processes.
• Content Standard 3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas.
• Content Standard 4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
• Content Standard 5: Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others.

• Standard 1: Apply appropriate media, techniques, and processes.
• Standard 3: Select and apply a range of subject matter, symbols and ideas.
• Standard 4: Analyze the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
• Standard 5: Analyze, interpret and evaluate their own and other’s artwork

1. Did the completed work display creativity and originality?
2. Did the work created display craftsmanship and technical skill?
3. Did the student make appropriate and creative use of materials?
4. Did the student display perseverance in completing the work?
5. Did the student participate in the critique of other students’ work?
6. Did the student display good work and clean-up habits?

New Vocabulary Words
Foreground – the part of a scene or picture that is nearest to and in front of the viewer.
Background – the part of a pictorial representation that appears to be in the distance and that provides relief for the principal objects in the foreground.
Middle ground – the part of a scene or picture that is between the foreground and the background.
Aerial perspective – a perception of depth orview of the landscape that shows the effects of objects in the distance.
Contemporary – modern or current.

Interdisciplinary Extensions

1. Language Arts: Imagine who might have lived in this spot in the past. Create a dialogue between you and that person. Write a script from this dialogue for a scene to be acted out by two people.
2. Music: Imagine who might live in this spot in the future. Create a list of things that are important to you, including what you would like them to know about the time that you have lived here. Using this list, create a poem or song.

• Jasper Francis Cropsey, Winter Landscape, North Conway, NH, 1859, Indian Summer Morning in the White Mountains, 1857
• Albert Bierstadt, Moat Mountain, Intervale, New Hampshire, c. 1862
• Sophia Towne Darrah, Mount Chocorua, New Hampshire, 1856
• Charles Curtis Allen, New England Landscape, c. 1930
• Benjamin Champney, New Hampshire Landscape, c. 1850
• Frank Henry Shapleigh, Covered Bridge in Bartlett, NH, c. 1880, White Mountain Landscape, not dated
• John Appleton Brown, View from Celia Thaxter’s Veranda, Appledore, Isles of Shoals, c. 1880
• William Zorach, Plowing the Fields, 1917
• Charles Sheeler, Amoskeag Canal, 1948

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