Heritage and Culture
Grade: 5
Standards
National Council for the Social Studies: Culture
 Students will understand how people from different cultures develop different values and ways
of interpreting experience.
Goal: Students will explore the idea of “heritage” as it relates to a culture.
Objectives: Students will…
1. Consider the definition of the word “heritage.”
2. Identify items that make up a country’s heritage
3. Understand how a country’s heritage affects its culture.
Set Induction
Show images of the Liberty Bell, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln.
How are these three things different? One is a thing, one is a person, and one is an event. How are
these three things the same? They are each a piece of our nation’s heritage. If you could name
three things that are pieces of your family’s heritage, what would they be?
Activities
1. Students share what they think of when they hear the word “heritage.” One student may
look up the word in the dictionary and read it aloud. How does the definition(s) change our
understanding of heritage? Something becomes a part of a country’s or a family’s heritage
because it is significant. The Liberty Bell has significance for our nation because it was
rung to call people together to hear the first reading for the people of Philadelphia of the
Declaration of Independence. Martin Luther King, Jr. could have been just another Baptist
preacher, but he changed a nation with his speeches on equality for African Americans.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is significant because he declares that even though
we were experiencing a civil war, our nation will not fall.
2. Using an assortment of stamps, students identify images on stamps that reflect that country’s
heritage. Students attach the stamp to an index card and write a complete sentence
describing how that stamp reflects that country’s heritage.
3. As a class, students share the stamps they have found. Group country stamps together on
sheets of newsprint or on posters.
4. Students discuss how a country’s heritage affects its culture.
Assessment
Each student writes a paragraph definition of heritage using examples from the postage stamp
activity.
Extension Activity
Create a postage stamp that illustrates the heritage of a country or of a family.