One of the first things we learned in our Social Studies Course was a lesson on conducting an Artifact Share. We learned that it was much more than a show and tell, but was instead, an important way to build community in your classroom.
I have tweaked the Artifact Share and been able to throw in a little history, a little language arts and a lot of community building. I’ve used this mini-unit, or a variation of it, twice, and plan to make this an annual event in the early days of my classroom.
Begin the Artifact Share with a lesson on King Tut. (Ancient Egypt is a VERY high-interest subject with third graders, at least.) I usually go to the library and pull multiple children’s books on Ancient Egypt, including that all important DK Eyewitness Book called Ancient Egypt. (Unsolicited Teacher Tip: The more DK Eyewitness Books you can have in your classroom library, the better. My students gravitate towards those books – they can flip through and look at lots of pictures and when something catches their eye, they stop and read.)
Anyway…pull lots of Ancient Egypt books of a variety of reading levels to have in your classroom for students to read during their read-to-self time or downtime for early finishers. You will be surprised at how fast those books fly off the shelves!
I always begin the Ancient Egypt unit by pointing out Egypt on a map and then having a short read aloud about the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. I usually read an excerpt from this book:
Then, I show pictures from different photo books on what was discovered inside Tut’s tomb and relate the story that archaeologists were able to piece together so much information on life in Ancient Egypt based on their findings. This discussion can take at least two days and sets up our own artifact share/class museum as a way of learning about our life.
We move on to choosing an artifact to represent ourselves in our museum. I model at least 3 personal artifacts, along with my accompanying brochures that I have created.
The students and I create a rubric for what should be included in their artifact brochure and then the students create their own brochures. (This can be a mini-writing lesson on something you want to concentrate on – we always do a sloppy copy first.)
Once brochures are finished, we set aside a day to have a museum - - the students bring in their artifacts that accompany their brochures. During a recess, I rearrange the desks and set up the artifacts and brochures for the museum. We discuss appropriate behavior in museums and the students have post-it notes to write positive comments as they wander the classroom exploring the artifacts. The museum has been such a success!
After the museum, we have a discussion/debrief where we reflect on what artifacts were shared and what we learned about each other and our society. There are often similar objects (stuffed animals, trophies, favorite books) and we make connections.
This is a mini-unit that covers community building, social studies, history and language arts. Both times I have done it have been very successful and the classes have bonded over shared experiences and artifacts.
National Geographic has some similar lesson plans on how to use Ancient Egypt and make current connections. King Tut's Treasures is one that has some resources to use with this mini-unit.
As a close, I put the brochures on the wall as one of our first examples of student work to remind all of us of who we are.
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