Artefacts contribute to understanding the past

• Features of artefacts (form)
• How artefacts connect us with our past (reflection)
• Why people keep or discard artefacts (perspective)

Provocation

Kindergarten brought in something special from home to share for their Topic Talks. When they came back from recess they found their special things ‘missing’. The children were very concerned that their special things were missing. Our provocation engaged the students emotionally and outlined to them how special their objects are and how disappointed they were when they found them missing.

Tuning In

We went for an excursion to the National Museum to participate in the Collecting is Fun program. The students looked around the museum and found different collections of objects. We read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge and talked about the term memory and how objects remind us of things, people and memories.

Here are some artworks that we also created. We chose an olden day object, drew the object then created another artwork of the same object and in present form.

Finding Out

We started looking at some objects from the past. We had artefacts from the olden days like old TVs, typewriters, scales and phones to analyse. We recorded our thinkings in a see, think, wonder and used adjectives to describe the objects and try to determine how they work and what they were used for.
Our 100 days of Kindergarten party also gave us an opportunity to play some 'olden day' games and dress up in 'olden day' clothes.

Sorting Out

We started sorting out objects into past, present and then talking about what the future object could look like and work. We also used box construction to explore what olden day objects looked like, the features they have and created our own olden day object. The children made artefacts including olden day sewing machines, skipping ropes, garages, cars and typewriters.

Going Further

To share our new learning, the students created their own artefact. We spent a lot of time making Papier Mache bowls that represent the students past and present.