Mt. Rushmore

Mount Rushmore

The purpse of this lesson is to teach the students about scale; to show how the work of individuals contribute to a grand idea

What: Mt. Rushmore is a...sculpture, monument, mountain

Where: South Dakota; the Harney Range in the Black Hills

When: started in 1927 and finished 12 years later in 1939

Who: Gutzon Borglum (sculptor)

Presidents: George Washington – 1^st president

Thomas Jefferson – writer of the Declaration of Independence

Abraham Lincoln – signed the Emancipation Proclamation

Theodore Roosevelt – Conservation of natural resources/established National Parks

How: constructed a model and then used a measuring tool to show where to carve the mountain

- lots of dynamite!

Size:

- Each head is approximately 60 feet tall

- George Washington's nose is 20 feet long, about the size of a school bus

- The pupils in their eyes are between 8 and 24 inches wide

Important vocabulary words:

model: a small version of the piece of art used by the artist to practice

sculpture: a piece of art that is carved or molded from some material, usually stone or metal

monument: an object used to remember an important person, place or event

Gutzon Borglum created a tool that measured how far out and down each feature was on the model, then built another tool that was 12 times the size to use on the mountain.

activity:

Materials needed:

- simple line drawing of George Washington, printed twice

- 20 – 25 squares of white paper (8½ in)

- zip baggie or envelope

Preparation:

• Draw a 5x5 grid on one of the pictures of George Washington (the lines should be spaced 1¼” apart)
• On the back of the picture, number each square in order
• Cut the picture into 25 pieces
• Place them into the zip baggie or envelope for safe keeping.

Instructions:

• Distribute a blank white square to each student and have them fold it in half both ways
• Next, distribute a piece of the picture to each student, have them write the number from the back onto the upper right corner of their blank square
• Then, have students fold their little square in half both ways
• Now, each student should try to draw what is on their small square onto their blank big square, using the folds as guides, encourage the students to make the lines dark so they can be seen from far away
• Once each student is done, they can hand them in and an adult can assemble the “mosaic” on the white board to show the whole picture! (the whole picture can be shown as a comparison)
• Recap that they each had a small part of a model then together they made a much larger picture

links: