Treasure Boxes

Would you like to see what's inside my treasure boxes? I just put these history kits together for a 3rd grade local history class. I am introducing the children to the idea that artifacts and documents can tell us about how people lived in the past.




We've already been outside hunting for the first settlers of the town. This is where I was right before the May Fair last Friday. History on the landscape you might say.

Tomorrow we're going to do some research about those settlers and write some poems. First we'll open my treasure box of artifacts and think about what we need to live--food, clothing, shelter. So, we'll look at how they cooked their food....

....made their clothes...

....and lit their homes.

Then we'll think about how they organized their communities--building roads, schools, and churches. To do this we'll make some quill pens to take notes at a mock town meeting. What shall we do about the lack of roads? Who should build them? Who should pay for them?

Finally we'll look inside the second treasure box--full of town meeting records and other documents.

Magnifying lenses with little lights on them make doing history much more fun :)

It has been fun to put this little project together. I found the cheese box at a yard sale and the ideas just went from there. I actually have a few more artifacts in the box--a pair of shoes, sewing equipment, old nails, and a handmade spoon. I found them all at local junk shops.