Animating Inspiration for Artifact Bags

 Animating Inspiration for Artifact Bags

     Most teachers may assume that there is no creative twist that they can possibly put onto teaching history to make it interesting and engaging for students. From past experiences, I have seen teachers who simply hand the students a textbook and teach vocabulary for the whole week, then give a chapter test every two weeks, while the teacher themselves are sitting at their desk reading a newspaper. I was one of those students in that classroom and I can honestly say that I could not learn in that environment. After reading Building literacy skills across the curriculum: Forging connections with the past through artifacts by Carol K. Fuhler, Pamela J. Farris, and Pamela A. Nelson (2006), I can honestly say that I agree with “Using artifacts, from primary documents to items that can be held in one’s hand, is a motivational strategy that can tie readers to a variety of genres and bring a period of history to life in the process.” is most definitely true. (p 646). Upon given the task of creating an artifact bag, I was thrilled knowing that I was going to be designing a lesson that I know could create real-world connections and make learning history an engaging and intriguing experience. 

Here is a link to my lino for this lesson.

   

     When thinking about a topic to use for the artifact bag that directly related to Choosing Our Country’s Leaders, I kept thinking about what specifically could I do to catch the student’s attention and eager to engage into this experience. Fuhler, Farris, and Nelson (2006) mention several times that the students were “unwrapping” the artifacts in the bag. That’s when I got the idea of decorating and designing the bag to resemble a type of birthday present in which the students would open piece by piece and want to further explore the contents hidden within the artifact bag. The topic for this artifact bag was based around the overall concept of presidents. This artifact bag was also designed to fit the needs of a 2nd grader who is learning about Social Studies and the topic of Choosing Our Country’s Leaders which reflects back to the term, President.  The point of this lesson is for the students to follow the inquiry process to develop a hypothesis and a conclusion with supporting details and evidence about the artifact bag. While working on the investigation, the students are collaborating together, so the New York State Common Core Standard that this lesson revolves around is:

Speaking and Listening Standards K- 5

    Comprehension and Collaboration     Grade 2 students:

               1. Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about

               grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

     When thinking about adapting this specific lesson to alter for older grades, there isn't much that needs to be adapted. The concept of an artifact bag is to allow the students to discover and investigate the items within. Perhaps the items could be more in depth with the concept or there could be more writing and academic language involved, but in all reality, this should be an engaging experience that will make the students eager to work and learn, not stress or become overwhelmed. 

         
     Now that I had selected a theme and the primary vocabulary word that I was going to bring out through the artifact bag, it was time to select the artifacts that would be inside the artifact bag. Now, what goes in the artifact bag should be primary resources and sources that the students can be able to recognize or identify through research. The use of primary sources when teaching history through any approach is always a fantastic way to bring history to life.

     The first artifact was in the smallest blue cylinder, which was fake money that looked like realistic money with the presidents’ faces on them. I chose this artifact because money can deal with a lot of different things and the presidents do have an important role with the economy situation that goes on in the United States. Some of the important characteristics of the American Dollar is the face of the dollar. They are important people and are previous presidents of the United States. 

     The second artifact that I chose to use was a deflated balloon with the decal of the American Flag in the shape of a star. The significance of having the American Flag is because the American Flag is a major symbol of the United States and usually when people see the American Flag, they right away think about the government and presidency. Teachers also refer to the American Flag being a symbol of Social Studies, it’s something that every student and teacher have seen and can relate to. I also incorporated it to see if the students could possibly make the connection to the National Anthem that they sing every morning at the beginning of the school day. 

     The third artifact that I chose to use was a plastic map of the United States with a red, paper push pin taped to Washington D.C. The point of using this type of artifact was to locate the capital of the United States which happens to be Washington D.C., hinting to the student that the president lives at the White House which is also located at Washington D.C. What I liked about using this artifact is that as the teacher, I could even arrange a field trip to the White House and go through an educational tour of the actual White House, it would be another way to engage the students into a real-world connection between the topic we are discussing in the classroom and the world around us through history. 

The fourth and final artifact that I chose to add to my artifact bag was a handy, dandy photo album of 8 presidents. The purpose of the photo album was to catch the student's attention and to want to know who is in the picture. The students could possibly do a quick research session for about three minutes and figure out that all of the pictures were past presidents (or the current president) and come to the conclusion that the album is an album of presidents' portraits.

The book that I chose to go along with this artifact bag is a children's book called Hail to the Chief: The American Presidency by Don Robb and illustrated by Alan Witschonke. The book has information about a variety of presidents, but mostly the significant ones. The information ranges from the basic presidential powers, the beginnings of presidency, the leaders in war, the leaders in hard times, the leaders that enforced laws, the leaders that expanded the country, how the presidents react with congress, the leaders in the world, leaders of their political parties, dark-horse candidates, the process of getting elected, removing a president, vice presidents as presidents, and about the presidential families. I chose this book because it is a good alternate instead of referring just to a textbook that doesn't go in depth discussing the presidents. 

 The website that I chose to use to go along with this artifact bag is called All About Electing a President of the United States. I chose this website specifically because it is easy to use and very simple to read and understand. The website is very straight forward and it allows the students to have a personal educational experience through the digital world. 

     All of these three elements connect to each other, especially for this type of lesson. They compliment each other and they all relate to the main topic of the lesson, presidents. When teaching with artifact bags, I believe that all 3 of these elements are highly necessary to have combined into a lesson. I feel that teaching with artifact bags is a new opening door to children for them to understand history through a different hands on point of view. This type of project strongly reinforces the content that can be taught through Social Studies. Artifact bags do not only have to be used for teaching history, they can be used for teaching all aspects of Social Students. When it comes to artifact bags, they are meaningful because the students are able to produce a memorable experience behind a project that actually has a specific meaning and point to be addressed. Artifact bags are integrative because they provide the students with a communicative experience that can be used in expressing their citizenship and human experience over time. This artifact bag also expresses a value-based experience because it allows the students to learn the values of an important aspect of the government, meaning the president and the significance of a president. This artifact bag could also be challenging for students who do not know the term and for those who need to do research on the individual artifacts because they are unaware of what they are in general. This artifact bag actively engages the students into a hands on experience that will possibly create a long last memory that they will always remember. I loved this activity and I can't wait until I can actually use this type of activity in my own future classroom. I will be using artifact bags a lot and it's overwhelmingly exciting just thinking about it.