Ancestral Puebloan Pottery

Even the absence of having access to actual ancient artifacts, I wanted to find a way to get my kids engaged as historians- so I ventured into creating a lesson to get them thinking like archaeologists. Last year, my class had a blast learning about Ancestral Puebloan pottery and creating some of their own, so this year I wanted to find a way to dive a bit deeper. So I created this resource to lead my kids on a journey through time as archaeologists.

After finishing the research portion, we were ready to create our own Pueblo inspired pottery. I used paper plates to start, and then we transferred our designs onto mini ornaments.

For the ornaments, we used Crayola Air Dry Clay. It worked great! 

This year, I am playing with the idea of creating replica artifacts (as in small broken pieces that would actually be found at an actual site) and have the kids go on an excavation for them- but its December so that piece may have to wait until next year...

Either way, this lesson was a blast and I cannot wait to jump in with this year's class!