Hands-On, Minds-On, Hearts-On Teaching
Sarah Poff Brings History Facts to Life through Her Signature Mix of Storytelling and Art
In Sarah’s multimedia workshops, she simultaneously engages and teaches her audiences about history by weaving historical facts, culture, storytelling, and art together to create unforgettable learning experiences. She typically presents these workshops at public libraries, in schools, in museums, and in historic homes around the region and across the country.
Following are some of Sarah’s most-requested presentations:
“Little House Life”
This hands-on workshop is about pioneer life as experienced by Laura Ingalls Wilder in her childhood and as memorialized in her many best-selling books. Sarah teaches attendees how to churn butter, create rag dolls, make home-made marbles, and design a pouch for the marbles they’ve made–they even get to take their pouch and marbles home with them!
“Traveling West Point Trunks”
In this presentation, Sarah’s husband, Alec, joins her and they tell the stories of Alec’s father, Major Ernest Poff, a Missouri native who began his career at West Point and who survived being shot in World War II. Mr. Poff served our country from 1941 to 1961. Along the way, he collected two steamer trunks and one footlocker trunk full of American historical memorabilia from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Conflict in Vietnam. During the workshop, Sarah and Alec show the artifacts and tell the stories of all those individuals from whom the items were collected. Attendees often remark that they feel as if they’ve stepped into a mini military museum!
“Civil War Arts & Crafts“
In this workshop, Sarah talks about the arts and crafts popular during the Civil War. She shows attendees how to make clay bullets (with a real bullet mold) and a bullut pouch to keep them in (like the soldiers wore during the war), shows them how to create and dress their own paddle dolls, and shows them how to write with a quill.
“Mock Battle of Saratoga: Revolutionary War Arts & Crafts”
During this workshop, Sarah shows the children in attendance how to write with a quill, how to make swords from newspapers, and how to make clay bullets (using a real bullet mold). She then trains them for the mock battle, which they reenact in a stirring finale.
“Celebrating Missouri History through Pioneer Toys“
In this hands-on, minds-on workshop, Sarah teaches about Missouri pioneer history through old-time toys and games that pioneer children used to build the skills they would need for adulthood. She demonstrates games such as Jacob’s ladder, the game of graces, kick the can, and ball and cup. She then gives attendees the chance to use their critical thinking skills to make a couple of animation toys from pioneer times. If there’s time for a longer session, she also shows attendees how to make rag dolls and demonstrates some common musical instruments of the time.
“Rocking on the Nile”
In this session, children aged five to ten take an Egyptian art adventure by Rocking down the Nile with Sarah. Attendees experience Egyptian culture through Sarah’s unique style, mixing historical facts, memorabilia, costumes, and art. Attendees participate in activities such as sculpting King Tut or Nefertiti, designing King Tutankhamun’s golden bracelets, and creating their own personalized cartouche.
“Rival Rodin”
Sarah teaches young children attending this workshop how to rival the famous artist Rodin by sculpting a human figure using only aluminum foil. Attendees will create a sculpture in action, such as playing basketball, dancing, skate boarding, or reading. During the session, attendees learn details about the life of Rodin.
“Adventuring in Asia”
Children from kindergarten to fifth grade go on an Asian art adventure with Sarah in this engaging workshop. Sarah shares facts about Asia as attendees use art supplies to sculpt a dragon, paint cherry blossoms, fold an origami sumo wrestler (and then stage wrestling matches), and dress up in Asian costumes.
This list is just a sampling of the workshops Sarah has done. She varies the content of her presentations to fit the needs of her audiences. She’s comfortable presenting on topics during any of the following time periods: colonial times/patriotism/4th of July; pioneer times; the Civil War; military topics. She also does a number of different seasonal presentations, including Valentine’s Day and Christmas presentations.
Over the years, Sarah has presented workshops for over 20 Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and for two chapters of the Sons of the American Revolution, and she has presented at 30 of the 34 branches of the Mid-Continent Public Library. She has presented for the Missouri Association for Museums and Archives, at the National Frontier Trails Museum, at the Battle of Westport Visitor’s Center and Museum, and at several Historic Houses in Missouri, including the 1859 Jail and Marshal’s home, the John Wornall Historic House, and the Alexander Majors Historic House.
The common element in all of Sarah’s multimedia storytelling workshops is that she seeks to fully engage all attendees in fascinating stories, amazing historical facts, and hands-on activities such as making clay pots, creating hand-made toys, and churning butter. The goal isn’t just to get people to learn history; it’s getting people to love history!
Custom Presentations
The list of workshops above should give you a good idea about Sarah’s presentation style and the types of topics she’s often asked to present on. However, she always enjoys creating new presentations to share her love of history with kids and adults alike.
If you have an idea for a workshop, contact Sarah and tell her how long the session should be, what ages would be in attendance, what topic you would like her to teach, and what hands-on activities you’d like her to include. She’ll take all of that information and determine what’s possible, using all of her forty years of experience teaching Art and presenting on historical topics.
Just reach out through any of the methods listed on the Contact page. There’s a good chance she can help.