Did you love reading Homer Price?? He has some fun adventures doesn’t he?! If you haven’t finished reading the book then your first assignment is to finish!
This week we are going to create some Homer Price inspired creations!
First I want you to dream up what your IDEAL donut would be — the sky is the limit! Would it have special sprinklers that you create? Would it have a filling that has never been done before? If you don’t like donuts what would YOUR ideal donut be made of instead?! Is it pretty? Is it huge? What makes it special? What makes it taste good?
Then I want you to CREATE your ideal donut as a craft project. Do you want to paint it? Make it from felt? Clay? Use any medium you want and make the donut. WHILE you are crafting and creating I want your mom to find 1940’s music to play in the background (there are tons of playlists out there, use whatever music streaming you prefer)
When you are done with that I want you to write down a description of your donut telling us all about what it’s made from and what makes it special.
NEXT you are going to create a wacky invention that could make life easier. Homer likes to build radios which isn’t wacky but is a pretty cool talent! He also built a basket system for pulling up Aroma and his uncle has a shop full of inventions that make his job easier.
I want you to design your invention by drawing your idea and give it a name and a slogan. So I may sketch a laundry folding machine and name it the “Fast Folder!” and the slogan would be “It folds your clothes faster then you can get them out of the dryer!” (remember the slogan for the shaving cream?)
In class you are going to stand up and present your picture (or your model if you would like to build a model instead), tell us the name and sell it to us — in other words give a little speech that makes us want to buy and use your product. You want to be persuasive and tell us all the cool things your invention does, you want to have energy and excitement and you want us to think your product is SO COOL.
Practice giving your exciting sales presentation to 3 different people before coming to class!
Homer Price takes place in probably the 1940’s in a small town. If you lived in a small town in America at that time then you wouldn’t shop at Walmart or Costco. You would have probably gone to main street in your town and shop at family-owned businesses like a general store, a diner, a movie theater and maybe lunch counter like Homer worked at!
This video shows clips of a small town in the 1940’s in Wisconsin. The cameraman wanted to capture his town and the people that lived in it. Can you see how differently people may have dressed? How the cars and buildings look? What other differences do you notice?
Finally, be prepared for some Halloween fun! We will change into our costumes at Vanguard for a Halloween parade and and trick or treating. In class we will create canvas trick-or-treat bags that we can use at our parade and for when you go trick-or-treating!
Checklist
-Create a brand-new donut
-Write up what makes it special
-Listen to 1940’s music
-Design an invention that can solve a problem, draw it or create it, give it a name and slogan
-Practice giving your exciting sales pitch to three different people
-Watch the video of 1940’s Wisconsin
-Finish Reading Homer Price
