Artifact Bag: Can you guess that time period?

              In class we were assigned to create our own artifact bag and lesson to go with our unit plan. My unit plan is on Early Americans from Columbus to the Industrial Revolution to the formation of government. This lesson focuses on the industrial revolution. If I was teaching my unit plan to a real class this would be the third lesson I teach after my Direct Instruction and Inquiry. For this lesson students are given a bag containing different primary sources/ artifacts during a specific time period. After discussing the artifacts with one another and filling out their graphic organizer they will come to a conclusion on what time period these items were from. 
               This lesson is based off of Fuhler's ideas. He explains how to teach using artifacts to students. These are the steps he tells teachers to take:

I believe these steps are very useful for students. They allow students to go through the inquiry process with their classmates. They have to use what they have in front of them (the artifacts) and then use books and websites for further research to come up with a conclusion. 
 When I taught my lesson to my teacher candidates I explained what an artifact is and what archeologist do to while looking through artifacts. I then explained that they will be archeologist today and go through the artifacts in the bag. My artifacts included:

These items each represent something during the industrial revolution. For example: 

lightbulb- electricity was invented during this time period.

map of a railroad- railroads were invented.

newspaper article on automobile- cars were invented

newspaper article on a sewing machine, button, needle, and thread- women got jobs for sewing and sewing machine made it much easier and faster

cotton- represented slaves picking cotton and using the cotton gin as well as cotton for sewing 

diary entry- many people worked long days in factories to produce and work on these new inventions. 

I also included a book on Benjamin Franklin and how he created electricity.

Here is my PowerPoint Presentation on the artifact bag containing the graphic organizer, artifacts, and sources for more information:

      Doing this project helped me get a better understanding on teaching history using primary sources. Before this project I was unaware I could get primary sources; I thought just museums and archeologist were able to access them. While researching artifacts for my topics I realized that there are many websites that contain primary sources. Here is a link you could use to access many primary sources to use in the classroom. 

       I believe having students work with primary sources makes students more interested in the lesson. Having hands on items of materials from people in the past makes students feel connected to them and the past. They could put themselves in this person's shoes and feel like they actually know that person just by reading their diary entry or holding money etc. Students will remember doing this activity because they could relate to it and it is an authentic lesson.

      This lesson could be used to teach all grades. It can apply to all standards. However the topic and difficult level will vary depending on the grade level. For example, in a 1st grade classroom I would not have any artifacts that requires reading because they will not be able to read certain words and get the full meaning of the artifact. I will include items that they could touch and are somewhat familiar with. However, if I was teaching a sixth grade class I would use written items and not such of an obvious object that they will be able to determine right away. I would want to use items that require some thought process. 

Here is a link on different ways teachers can teach using artifacts to elementary school students in different grades. 

      Overall, I believe artifacts are a great way to teach history. It is authentic to students and they will be able to connect and remember what they learned from the lesson. It will allow them to get a better understanding of history because they could see how things actually were during different time periods all around the world. 

Here is a link to my mini lesson on my artifact bag.