A museum loan offers
a wealth of opportunity in a classroom environment,
and although the artefacts should be treated
with care and respect, the only real limitation
to their implementation is your imagination.
Besides the more obvious handling and observational
sessions you might want to use a loan to motivate
role-play, artwork or creative writing. For
a little inspiration here are 12 ways you might
want to use a loan in your classroom:
| General
historical loans |
| 1. |
Ask
the children to make a ‘technical’ drawing
of an artefact from the front, side and
top,
and include the dimensions. |
| 2. |
Ask the children to
write a creative story or news article
about how the object came to be in the
museum. |
| 3. |
Separate
the children into pairs or teams and conceal
a loan under a cloth or behind a screen.
Ask the children to describe the loan to
their partner without using certain ‘obvious’ words
or phrases like ‘it’s a pot’,
the other person has to then draw the described
object using their imagination. |
| 4. |
Get a
map of the world and put it on a display
board. Take photos or make drawings of
each loan and pin the photo to the place
in
the world that the object comes from. |
| 5. |
Mark a
timeline on your classroom display to show
where you loan would fit in. Use photos
and ribbons to point to the correct place. |
| 6. |
If you
have a loan from recent history (30’s,
40’s 50’s) invite a family
member/friend to visit the class as a ‘Guest
speaker’ to explain more about it. |
| 7. |
Ask the
children to draw a picture of the place
that the object may have been found. |
| 8. |
If you
have several loans, ask the children to
organise them according to age, material
or use. |
| 9. |
Ask the
children to design an interesting display
case that the object could be put in at
the museum. Ask them to think about how
high it would be; what material would the
case
be made
of; whether or not visitors would be allowed
to handle it; how it would be protected
from thieves! |
| 10. |
Put several
small objects from a loan box on the table
or in a tray and ask the children to look
at them for one minute. Cover them carefully
with
a
cloth,
then ask them to
write down as many things as they can remember.
Take the cloth away and see how many point
they got. |
| 11. |
Write
an archaeologist’s report of the
objects in your loan that could be used
as a label in a museum exhibition. |
| 12. |
Put a
loan object into a 'feely box/bag' ask
the children to take turns in handling
the concealed object and ask them to guess
what the object is. |
