Artifact Bags are an amazing way to help history come to life for children. The excitement of unwrapping a mystery item can be a very exciting way to engage the students. For my artifact bag, I choose to include four items. The items I had included were a British Pound, a painting of Henry Clay in Congress, a copy of the Star Spangled Banner flag, and a set of Mardi Gras Beads. So, do you have any ideas about the time period these items represent? I challenge you to try and find the connection and then continue reading. After all of your exploration, did you come to the conclusion that these items represent the War of 1812? Let me explain each artifact to make sure you see the connection. The first item, the British Pound represented the British breaking the Free Trade Agreement by not allowing the US to trade with France by going so far as to capture US sailors. Artifact number two, the painting of Henry Clay, represented the group of people that Henry Clay lead called the War Hawks. The War Hawk demanded that President Madison declare war against the British to defend their honor. The Star Spangled Banner was the flag flown over Fort McHenry while Francis Scott Key wrote the National Anthem of the same name. Finally, the last artifact I had placed in the bag was a set of Mardi Gras beads that represented the Battle of New Orleans which was the last battle of the War of 1812. Here is the link to my PowerPoint if you wanted to see my project in more details.
Teaching my classmates about my artifact bag was very exciting. I really enjoyed watching them try to figure out what each item represented and how they were connected. The majority of my group and group four that we had worked with were focused on westward expansion through the Louisiana Purchase and the Gold Rush. My bag representing the War of 1812 through some people for a loop and I thought it was very interesting to hear their problem-solving skills at work.
Giving students time to talk to each other and think about the artifact bags encourages curiosity (Fuller, 2006). When the students are curious about what they are learning, they will definitely absorb the content more efficiently. Students will also have practice using primary and secondary sources during a mystery bag lesson. Students can experience primary and secondary sources from an artifact bag. Primary sources are anything that was created during the time period it represents such as a diary, a newspaper article, or even a photograph. Secondary sources were created to summarize what happened during an event (Fuller, 2006). Both sets of sources offer different values. Primary sources provide the person with a first-person account of an event or person, whereas secondary sources are created later on in history that is meant to expand a person's knowledge of the past. It is important to try to use both in the classroom to not only enrich their social studies engagement and have the opportunity to hear the opinions of the people of the past to see how they have changed. In an article written by Carol Fuller (2006) it was mentioned that a way to find artifacts to use in an artifact bag is to contact a local museum. It said that many museums will have bins of materials pertaining to a certain time period. Another way to find materials that were suggested was second hand or thrift shops. I am very excited to use artifact bags in my classroom one day. Since I eventually want to settle down in the Hudson Vally, I would love to do an artifact bags on FDR, the Vanderbilts, Samule Morse, and the many other local historiacl people that have lived in the area. Not only will the history come to life through the artifacts, but since the children live right down the road from these historial figures, they will feel connected to history and more likely to build a passion for it.
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