1. Distribute artifact Worksheet: Reading an Object.
2. Show artifact from teacher's home to students.
3. Ask students to complete worksheet, using teacher's artifact.
4. Ask students to draw the artifact at the bottom of the sheet.
5. Tell students about the history, background, and use of the artifact.
6. Lead students in a discussion about artifact research, what can and cannot be learned from objects.

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Worksheet: Reading an Object

1. Distribute photographs of the Memorial Hall Museum artifacts from the web site.
2. Distribute the Worksheet: Reading an Object to use as a guide in analyzing the artifacts.
3. Instruct students to examine each picture, as you give background about it from the notes above. Instruct students to take notes about each artifact in their social studies notebooks (being sure to include the name of the object).
4. Choose one artifact to analyze with class as a whole. Using the artifact worksheet as a guide, answer questions about the object, and instruct students to draw the artifact at the bottom of the worksheet.
5. Using the picture and interpretive label on the First Church of Deerfield Pewter Flagon instruct students to study the picture and read the text to see how a museum label is written. Discuss what museum labels are and what their purpose is.
6. Instruct students to select three or more artifacts from the Digital Collection to draw. Check to be certain that all of the artifacts will be represented. Distribute drawing materials and ask students to draw their chosen artifacts each on a separate sheet.
7. Distribute clean copies of the artifact worksheet to students, one for each of the artifacts they are examining. Instruct students to use the sheet to analyze each artifact. They may use their notes as a guide.
8. Instruct students to draft an interpretative museum label for three of the artifacts on the bottom of the artifact worksheet.

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Artifacts:
Side Chair with leather uphostery
Side Chair
"SW" Joined Chest
"SH" Joined Chest
Whole Cloth Quilt
Flintlock Long Fowler Butter Churn
Sycamore Barrel
Gate-leg Table
Mortar and Pestle
Pewter Flagon

Worksheet: Reading an Object

[Note to teacher: If a field trip to the Wells-Thorn House at Historic Deerfield is not feasible, distribute copies of the room photographs and floor plans, which can be downloaded from the PVMA website.]

Instruct students to take notes in their social studies notebooks as they follow the directions below:

1. Instruct students to notice the outside of the back of the house. Ask them to describe the box-like shape, windows, chimney, and the asymmetry of the plan.
2. Explain that historians can use inventories and wills to help them determine what people owned in a previous time period. Explain an inventory and a will. [There is a description of an inventory in the Teacher Background Essay: The Wells-Thorn House. The teacher background essay for Lesson 7 includes a description of a will.] This house belonged to Ebenezer (1691-1758) and Abigail Wells (1691-1772). Ebenezer was a farmer and they had no children. They owned two African slaves, Lucy Terry and Cesar.
3. Have the students examine the kitchen (but don't mention its use). How do they think this room was used? Note the fireplace in detail, the storage bin and basket, and the hanging bags.
4. Note the door to the cellar, and discuss the well and the storage of vegetables and other foods throughout the house. (Refer to background essay)
5. Look at the pictures of the "hall." Discuss different definitions of that word. What we call a hall today was called a passageway or "spaceway" in the 1700's. Instruct students to inspect this room, noting the use of wood, and the items found in the room. Ask students to list what they might do in this room.
6. Explain that four things were helpful to keep house, but not everyone had all of these things:

• table
• chairs
• bed
• chest

7. Instruct students to sketch examples of these items in the Wells-Thorn House and write descriptions of them.
8. Ask students what happened in this room? How do they know? (Discuss how the furnishings support their conclusions. In the 1700's, a hall was an all-purpose room where the cooking, sleeping and working were usually done.)
9. Be sure students understand that, although some household items such as sewing needles, linens, sugar, and rum were imported from other countries, most items had to be made or processed by hand within the household or produced nearby.
10. Discuss the following:

• What building material was used in making this structure? (Wood was the most readily available building material.)
  
• What might people have done at the table? (The table was used for eating, writing, chores, etc. and it could be moved as necessary.)
  
• How many chairs and stools are there? (this room has three chairs and a stool. Some rooms had only one chair for the male head of the house, and some had none.)
  
• What are the two most important pieces of furniture in this room? In this time period, the bed (bedding), followed closely by the chests, was the most valued piece of furniture. Point out the bed and discuss that it was called a bedstead, rope, or cord bed because intertwined ropes supported the mattress, which was stuffed with hay or feathers. This bedstead also had curtains around it, which were considered part of the "furniture of the bed," and provided warmth and privacy. Ask the students what they might have put in the chests (clothing and flat textiles). One chest is a 1694 six-board chest of pine and the other is a 1720 chest painted with a design of swirls to look as if it were made of burled walnut. This kind of decorative painting is called "graining," and it was used to make things look expensive and imported.
• Which items do you think were made in this country? Which were imported? (looking glass, candlesticks)

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student notebooks

Photos:
Wells-Thorn house, outside

Wells-Thorn house kitchen photo 1
Wells-Thorn house kitchen photo 2
Wells-Thorn house hall photo 1
Wells-Thorn house hall photo 2