Economics and Geography Lessons

Down Buttermilk Lane

MCPS Status of Book as of 4/4/96:
Approved as Library Book for Grades 2-4

Title: Down Buttermilk Lane by Barbara Mitchell with illustrations by John Sandford (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, New York, NY, 1993)

Lesson Developed by Barbara S. Yingling

Literature Annotation:
This brightly illustrated story follows an Amish family as they travel in their buggy to the local village where they visit and do errands. Many of the cultural ways of the Amish are interwoven in the dialogue and pictures.

Grade Level: 2-3

Duration: 60 minutes

Economic Concepts: Resources, Trade

Geography Themes: Relationships: Humans and Environments, Regions, Movement

MSPAP Outcomes and Indicators:

Economic Outcome: Students will demonstrate an understanding of the historical development and current status of economic principles, institutions, and processes needed to be effective citizens, consumers, and workers in American Society.

Indicators:

• Identify economic resources located within a community.
• Describe the relationship between economic wants and needs.

Geography Outcome: Students will demonstrate an understanding of geographic concepts and processes as needed to examine the role of culture, technology, and the environment in the location and distribution of human activity.

Indicators:

• Explain the relationship between the physical setting of a community and its ability to satisfy the wants and needs of its people.
• Locate features of the school and community by interpreting and constructing maps using a simple grid system, cardinal directions, relative distances and sizes, and symbols explained in a legend (key).

Objectives: Students will be able to:

• Explain how the wants and needs of the Amish and other people are met.
• Make a grid map of an Amish farm.
• Compare the lifestyle of the Amish family to their own lifestyle.

Vocabulary: farmers' market, shoofly pies, britches, English, buttermilk, grid

Materials:

• Book: Down Buttermilk Lane
• 8_ x 11" poster paper, 1 piece for every 2-3 students
• "Amish Farmland" grid and direction worksheet, 1 copy for each student
• transparency, "Comparing Two Lifestyles"
• transparency, "How Wants and Needs Are Met"
• worksheet, "How Wants and Needs Are Met," 1 copy for each student
• 1" construction paper squares (18 yellow, 3 brown, 8 green, 5 red, 1 orange) in a baggie, 1 per student
• crayons or markers
• On-Line Resources
  • About the Amish in Ohio
  • About the Amish in Indiana
  • Field Trip to the Amish Farm and House

Teacher Background:
The Amish are a Protestant group that teaches separation from the world. Members are forbidden to go to war, swear oaths or take public office. Mostly farmers, the Amish believe in a life of simplicity. They use horses to work their farms and the strict Amish avoid the use of electricity and telephones. The largest communities are found in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa, and Illinois, although Amish are found in other states. Members who break away from the strict Old Order usually become Mennonites.

Lesson Development:

Motivation:
Ask students how they traveled to school today? (Bus, car, walked, truck) Ask how many of them rode to school in a "buggy" like the one in the picture. (Show the picture of the Amish buggy on page 1 of the book.) Explain that if they were Amish boys and girls, they would walk or ride in a buggy for traveling. Explain that they are going to hear a story that will teach them about the way the Amish people live.

Activities:

1. Read the book, Down Buttermilk Lane, to the students.

2. Discuss the following questions:
   • What are the natural features of the land where this Amish family lived? (rolling hills and valleys, streams, trees that lose their leaves, pond)
   • What are some of the human-made features that have been added to the landscape? (barns, windmills, bridges, roads, houses, stores, fences, silos)
   • What does "Dat" (the father) do for a living? How do you know? (The father is a farmer. He says it is time for "milking" and the author says they live in a farmhouse)
   • What are some of the products that the farmer produces on his farm? (milk, dairy products, corn, cabbages, cauliflower, maybe other vegetables)
   • Do you see a tractor on this farm? How does the farmer till the soil and harvest the crops without the use of a tractor? (We see horses or mules pulling the wagon in the illustration.)

3. Explain that the Amish people believe in a very simple life. Most of them do not use telephones, electricity, or gasoline-powered vehicles. The farm work is done with teams of horses or mules. Show the picture with the old car on the lawn. Tell them that some of the Amish people have left the Old Order Amish with their strict rules to become Mennonites. Mennonites enjoy some of the more modern ways of living like driving cars, but they still wear simple clothing. Ask: "What other examples of a simple way of life were mentioned or illustrated in the story?" (They dress in plain clothes; they play checkers instead of video games; they make quilts in the winter; they make home-baked bread; they visit the pond in their leisure time)

4. Show the "Comparing Two Lifestyles" transparency. Ask: "What are some of the ways you are alike and different from the Amish?" Help the students use the text and illustrations to complete the Venn diagram.

5. Distribute an "Amish Farmland" grid worksheet, the directions to the grid, and a baggie with precut 1" squares of construction paper to each student. Explain to the students how to read a grid. Have them point to a grid square as you call out a location; for example: C-6, E-1, A-5, and so on. Tell them to make a map of an Amish farm by drawing and by pasting the construction paper squares according to the directions and the map key. Share some of the grid maps when they are completed.

6. Ask the students to identify landmarks mentioned in the story that were along the route to town and back to the farm. Make a list on the board. (Farmhouse, bridge, vegetable garden, windmill, Zimmermans' general store, Zooks' Dry Goods store, hardware store, Farmers' Market, Dawdi's place, pond, Ebersol Chair Shop, Fishers' Carriage Shop)

7. Have the students work in groups of 2-3. Distribute a piece of 8 x 11" poster paper to each group. Tell them to create a drawing for the landmark you assign. Mark the cardinal directions on the 4 walls of the classroom. Choose 12 students to hold the landmark posters in different locations around the classroom. Take turns having the remaining students give cardinal directions for other students to follow to get to a landmark. (Example: Walk 3 steps north to the bridge. Turn left and walk west to Dawdi's place.)

8. Remind the students that "Dat" took his family to town because of all their wants and needs were not supplied by the farm. Show the transparency "How Wants and Needs Are Met". Have the students give examples from the story to show how the Amish family's wants and needs were satisfied by using the resources on the farm or by making purchases in town.

Conclusion/Closure:
The story did not tell what the Amish family did after their dinner. Have the students suggest activities that would satisfy the Amish need for simplicity.

Thoughtful Application:
Distribute a copy of the chart "How Wants and Needs Are Met" to each student. Have the students chose another country they have studied which has a different lifestyle from their own, write the name of the country at the bottom of the chart, and complete the chart for that group.

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Last updated on March 14, 1997
Maintained by John L. Day

<jday@umd5.umd.edu>