Two weekends ago we embarked on an archaeological dig! Since we started our history study with learning about archaeologist and what they do, I decided the boys should get some hands on learning by going on a dig. We unfortunately don’t live near any dig sites so we had to improvise, but considering their ages it was probably better this way.
In order to do the dig we bought a plastic tub, some sand *although here it is the coral beach sand so that was an interesting element but we made it work*, and some discarded pottery I was able to get from the craft store for free.
I filled the tub with the sand and hid the “artifacts” while the boys played in the living room. Then I equipped them with brushes to clean off their artifacts, plastic cups to help them dig, aluminum pie plates to hold their “discoveries”, and hats to protect them from the “sunlight”.
For the next 30 minutes or so the boys went about digging up artifacts and we talked about archaeology/archaeologist. It was good fun and a great way to kick off our history learning which will be very hands on at times *with us spending the day living in times long past, immersing ourselves in the cultures and times*.
Be His Enemy
11 hours ago
July 27, 2010 at 9:56 PM
I just saw something yesterday about making those treasure rocks that you can break open and dig stuff out of. I'll see if I can find it again for you. It would have gone really well for this! If you want to throw them some trivia, you can tell them this is what Mrs. Melonie was gonna do for a living. (I changed my mind when I realized that in the specialty I chose it would mean scorpions, tarantulas, and very hot hot hot weather. Linguistics and cultural anthro became much more interesting than archaeology then. LOL)