What Is an Artifact Bag ??!

When I first heard we would be creating an artifact bag I must say I was a little confused. I had never actually heard of and artifact bag or seen it used in a classroom. Once I found out what it was and how to create it I felt intimated. The creativity part of this had me stumped. My first thought was how was I going to find actual artifacts, but after putting some thought into it I came up with a more practical solution. I decided that I would replicate and design my own artifacts!

My first step was to decide my event. I choose to do the Boston Tea Party. next I had to think of different artifacts that relate to the Boston Tea Party. I decided I wanted to do a bag of tea, a native american head peace and a mini boat. I got a teabag form kitchen and borrowed a little ship from my bother. I created the native american headpiece using a trial headband and feathers. You can see my artifacts in the picture below! I designed an inquiry based lesson to go along with my artifact bag. The students would be exploring the artifacts and discovering what event using the inquiry process. You can check my lesson out here!

Here is my voki that I created !

This is how I activated my students' prior knowledge !

I took away a lot of great ideas from my experience working with artifacts bags. I absolutely love the idea of using them in Social Studies. I think that this is such a creative and hands on way of presenting material to students. I also really love the idea of having student s create their own artifact bag. This would be a great way to wrap up a unit ! I also think that artifact bags can be used in any subject. One idea I have is for students to use them for a book report. The students would read a book and then create artifacts based off of the book and share it with the class. Another idea is to have the students create an all about me artifact bag. I think this would be a perfect way for the students to get to know each other in the beginning of the year.

Here are some of the materials from my lesson !

Mowhawk Native American Headpiece 

Tea Ship

Tea Bag 

The book I used for my artifact bag lesson !

Don't just take my word on artifact bags, there's actually a lot of great research out there supporting them!  The Pennsylvania Department of Education says that "Using artifacts in the classroom can be an invaluable asset.  Artifacts bring a time period or culture to reality for students who tend to be firmly centered in their own culture.  The interest that can be generated should not be underestimated.  Occasionally, you even find that a student does independent research on a topic simply because of the interest that was generated in class. Some teachers may view only priceless items from a period as viable artifacts. Instead, any hands-on, tangible item is an important artifact to give extra dimension to a historical period." This just goes to show the importance of using artifacts in the classroom an why they are so valuable. It is essential that students are able to experience history because it is sometimes very challenging for them to actually imagine it happening. 

Here is a video of teachers and students being introduced to artifacts !

References

Teaching History.org, home of the National History Education Clearinghouse. (n.d.).  Retrieved April 2, 2015, from http://teachinghistory.org/tah-grants/lessons-learned/23961

Standards Aligned System. (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2015, from http://www.pdesas.org/Instruction/Frameworks