We use an activity where kids make their own artifact that they can take home with them, which helps clearly distinguishes artifacts recovered from an excavation and artifacts that they make and are theirs for the kids during the archaeology program.  We have great success with this.  However, it is most important to contextualize the activity as to how it relates to what we do and learn about and from artifacts.  All the activities need to connect to each other and their goals for educating kids about our message (whatever that is) and how archaeology can be used to teach them about a variety of non-archaeological topics.  It is great that kids will have a great time, but there need to be very clear and reasonable goals for doing the program and subsequent evaluation process to measure if those goals were met and what effect (intended and unintended) the program had on the kids, their parents, local community, etc.  Also, you will need to consider the consequences of using a fake dig versus a real dig, as both have negatives and positives concerning the messages being offered.  There is a lot to think about when doing these programs.

Jay

M. Jay Stottman
Staff Archaeologist
Kentucky Archaeological Survey

M. Jay Stottman
Staff Archaeologist
Kentucky Archaeological Survey
________________________________________
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Bill Green [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2013 10:12 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: sherds needed for Children's Day

<snipped the orig. messages because I subscribe to the Digest>

Objects for dig simulations can come from museum education collections or
unprovenienced material in labs but should be left there for the next round
of programs. The "take-homes" should not include artifacts, but kids can
still go home with tangible mementos of their experience. In addition to
the options noted by other posters, paper-layer simulations as my colleague
Paul Thistle promotes would be worth considering. See a 5-minute video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtsX1AULYVA and his project website at
https://sites.google.com/site/archexcavsim/ and an abstract of his article
on the subject at http://lcoastpress.metapress.com/content/f600m4586088328j/.
Note the equivalent treatment of modern, historic, and prehistoric
material.

Bill

--
William Green, Ph.D., RPA
James E. Lockwood Jr. Director, Logan Museum of Anthropology
Beloit College
Beloit, WI 53511 USA
http://www.beloit.edu/logan
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608-363-2119
Fax 608-363-7144