Artifact Bags

I really enjoyed this activity. When our teacher was showing examples of artifact bags to the class it was fun/interesting revealing all the items inside. The artifacts inside were all about history,the past, and items from a long time ago. As we revealed the items out of the bag we had to try and connect it to why it was there in the first place. I liked how the lesson was about history and how the items were old and interesting to look at and study.
Then it was the classes turn to make our own artifact bag. While I was thinking about ideas for my artifact bag I wanted to pick a TV show that was old and what I thought a lot of people would know. I wanted a TV show that was a piece of history. I finally chose "I Love Lucy" from 1951. I used images off the computer with the actors on it, cameras they used or filmed with, and outfits they wore. The women wore house dresses because they were doing work around the house all day and the men wore business suits. I made the pictures look old by crumpling them up and making little rips into the paper to show old age. I had them made in black and white because back in that time period they didn't have colored pictures. I also made a power point to show my group. In the power point I had the actors names, the dates the show was aired, the old TV sets people watched from and cars that were used in that time. I also added who produced the show. In the last slide I had added the theme song that was from "I Love Lucy" I figured once people heard the song they would make the connection to the show and know what show I was talking about.
I thought this activity/lesson was both fun and interesting to learn about. This lesson would be great for elementary students. I think they would enjoy picking out a piece of history and researching a topic. Once they found a topic they would pick artifacts to put into a creative bag and present it to their class. I think the class would enjoy this activity/lesson because they would have to try and guess how the artifacts would relate  to their classmates topic. The students would get educated on different historian topics and learn new information that might have never crossed their minds.