Milo's Museum in Third Grade

By Jan Bennett

I did the lesson reading Milo’s Museum with my third grade art students at Concord Hill School. Students were preparing for a shadow box project and we talked about the role of a curator, because they will be the "curators" of their shadow boxes.

We discussed many different issues including:

• Under-representation of people of color in museums, in government, and in education

• The Black Lives Matter t-shirt worn by the Aunt in the book was mentioned in both groups. Students said they have seen signs like that near their house and we discussed what Black Lives Matter means.

• We discussed how although laws have changed (which they know about through study of the Civil Rights Movement), many attitudes and behavior has not changed. One student brought up the recent news story about the two black men in Starbucks who were asked to leave when they were waiting there for a meeting, and the police were eventually called.

The discussion was rich and multi-layered in both groups. I will continue to use this book for this project in the future.