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Social studies activity

Michigan's Story: Great Lakes, Great Cars & Great Music

Michigan is the only state that looks like a mitten — trace your hand and you've drawn the map! The Great Lakes around Michigan hold one-fifth of all the fresh water on the surface of the entire Earth. That is enough water to cover the whole United States three feet deep.

Hands OnAbout 25 minutesScreen-freeParent help expected

Materials and setup

How this changes by age

Pre-K (ages 3–4)

Michigan is the only state that looks like a mitten — trace your hand and you've drawn the map! The Great Lakes around Michigan hold one-fifth of all the fresh water on the surface of the entire Earth. That is enough water to cover the whole United States three feet deep.

Difficulty 1 of 3

Steps

  1. Trace your hand on blue paper to make Michigan's mitten shape.
  2. Color the inside of your mitten green for the land.
  3. Draw big blue waves all around the mitten — those are the Great Lakes!
  4. Ask: 'If the lakes hold enough water to cover the whole country, how deep do you think they are?' (Lake Superior is 1,335 feet deep.)

Learning objectives

  • Recognize Michigan's distinctive mitten shape as its map outline
  • Wonder at the enormous size of the Great Lakes — the largest freshwater system on Earth
  • Notice that Michigan is surrounded by water on three sides

Kindergarten (ages 5–6)

Here is a surprising idea: Henry Ford didn't just build cars — he decided to pay his workers $5 a day in 1914, which was double what anyone else paid. Why? So his own workers could afford to buy a Ford car! Before Ford, only rich people owned cars. Ford's big idea — that workers should earn enough to buy what they make — changed how the whole world thinks about wages. Every time someone gets a raise today, that idea goes back to a decision made in a Michigan factory.

Difficulty 2 of 3

Steps

  1. Draw a car factory assembly line with workers in a row, each adding one part to a car passing by.
  2. Draw a price tag on a finished car: $440 (that was the price of a Model T in 1914).
  3. Draw a smiling worker holding a $5 bill — because that was TWO DAYS of wages for a Ford car!
  4. Write or dictate: 'Henry Ford paid workers more money so they could ___.'
  5. Ask: 'Do you think it was a good idea for Ford to pay workers more? Why?'

Learning objectives

  • Identify Henry Ford's $5/day wage as a revolutionary business idea, not just a car invention
  • Explain the connection between worker pay and being able to buy products
  • Understand that one business decision in Michigan changed how the whole economy works

Early elementary (ages 6–8)

Henry Ford's River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan was the largest factory on Earth in 1928 — 100,000 workers, 93 buildings, its own railroad. Raw iron ore went in one end; finished cars came out the other. Ford workers earned the highest factory wages in America. Then in 1959, Berry Gordy borrowed $800 from his family and started Motown Records in a house in Detroit. That house — 'Hitsville U.S.A.' — produced the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and the Jackson 5. One state gave America both the assembly line and the soundtrack to the civil rights movement. And here's another Michigan wonder: Mackinac Island bans all cars — everyone on the island travels by horse or bicycle, just like it's 1890!

Difficulty 2 of 3

Steps

  1. Create a four-box poster: Ojibwe and Potawatomi homeland; Ford's assembly line and the $5/day wage; Motown Records — music born from Black Detroit; Mackinac Island — Michigan's car-free island wonder.
  2. In each box, draw a scene and write two to three sentences. In the Motown box, name at least two artists and explain why their music mattered beyond entertainment.
  3. On a Michigan map, mark Detroit, Dearborn (River Rouge Plant), Mackinac Island, and Lake Superior.
  4. Write a paragraph: Henry Ford's $5/day wage and Berry Gordy's Motown Records both changed life for ordinary people. How? What do they have in common?
  5. Share your poster and underline the connection between the two ideas.

Learning objectives

  • Explain why Ford's $5/day wage was a revolutionary economic idea, not just a generous gesture
  • Identify Motown Records as a Black-owned business that changed American music and culture
  • Analyze what the Ford factory and Motown Records have in common as economic innovations
  • Practice evidence-based comparison writing

Upper elementary (ages 8–10)

In 1914, Henry Ford did something no factory owner had ever done: he voluntarily doubled wages to $5/day so workers could afford the cars they built. Economists call this idea 'demand-side economics' — the theory that workers being consumers creates a self-sustaining economy. It transformed Detroit into the richest industrial city in America. Then between 1970 and 2000, auto companies moved plants to cheaper labor markets. Detroit lost 60% of its population. Here is the dilemma Ford never solved: his idea only works when workers stay employed. Michigan also holds one of the world's great natural wonders — the Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water, and Mackinac Island has maintained a ban on automobiles since 1898. If you were a Michigan senator in 1970 watching the auto plants start to close, what policy would you have tried?

Difficulty 3 of 3

Steps

  1. Research Ford's $5/day wage: What was the average factory wage before it? How many workers applied for Ford jobs? What did critics say Ford was doing wrong?
  2. Read about Motown Records: Why did Berry Gordy choose Detroit? How did Motown's 'Sound of Young America' connect to the civil rights movement?
  3. Create a timeline from 1900 to 2000 with at least six major Detroit events — economic, cultural, and demographic.
  4. Write a compare-and-contrast paragraph: How did Detroit's strength (single-industry dominance) become its weakness?
  5. Add a 'Your decision' section: If you were a Michigan senator in 1975 watching auto jobs disappear, what one policy would you propose — and what would be its unintended consequence?
  6. Share your timeline and policy idea with a family member.
  7. In 1914, Henry Ford shocked factory owners by paying workers $5 a day, more than double the usual wage. A Model T cost about $440 that year. Calculate how many days a Ford worker had to work to afford one car, then compare to today: look up an average U.S. car price and a typical daily wage and do the same math. Which era made a car easier to buy?
  8. A Model T assembly line had workers doing one small job over and over. Design your own 4-station assembly line for building paper airplanes with a friend or family member. Time how long 5 planes take on the line versus one person building all 5 alone, and write which was faster and why.

Learning objectives

  • Explain Ford's $5/day wage as an economic theory — demand-side economics — not just a factory rule
  • Trace how single-industry dependence created both Detroit's greatness and its collapse
  • Analyze Motown's cultural significance alongside its economic importance to Black Detroit
  • Evaluate a historical economic problem and propose a policy response with awareness of tradeoffs

Safety and evidence note

Read the full activity before beginning. An adult should supervise tools, heat, food, outdoor work, movement, and experiments as appropriate. Completion records that the activity was done; the child’s explanation, work sample, photo, or demonstration is stronger evidence of learning than a completion check alone.

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