 I find that children really do connect with objects and that they really can have a deep, deep understanding of those objects. It might not be the same understanding you or I have as educators, but we have to acknowledge what that student's experience is first and then try to broaden their experience using that artifact. So I do a mystery artifact investigation that begins with simple observation, descriptives. What is this thing made of? How big is it? What does it weigh? You could do all kinds of observation skills like that. I don't allow them to make guesses about what it does until after they've thoroughly examined the physical properties of the object and test it. Does it have any moving parts? Does it look like something's missing? Does it belong to something else? Then after they've really exhausted all of those basic observations, I start asking for their ideas about what the thing might do. And if a student responds with, it really doesn't matter what the answer is, I never tell them whether they're right or wrong about what the object is. That's not the point of the exercise. The point of the exercise is to get them thinking and to get them questioning. Here's an example I used yesterday. If you know what a candle mold looks like, it's got cylinders, usually six, four. It can be many different numbers of cylinders. It's tin and it's got a handle and a place for you to pour the wax. So when I present this to children, and I've been doing this particular artifact for many years, and many times I get the answer from children that they think it's a hot dog cooker. Okay, if it's a hot dog cooker, why don't you tell me or do a pantomime and show me how this hot dog cooker would work. And the children begin to, you know, pantomime, putting the hot dogs in, putting it in the fire. And then you can see what's happening on their faces as they think this through. And I say to them, how do you get this out of the fire, because we're talking about before microwaves and stoves. They all know this at this point. And they say, well, you have to have something long because they know the metal gets hot and you can't just reach in and hold the handle. Then I ask them, what happens to a hot dog when it cooks? Every fourth grader knows that hot dogs expand when they cook. And so then they begin to realize it would be difficult to get the hot dog out of those cylinders. They come to their own conclusion that their hypothesis is not the right one. I don't have to tell them that. Or I may ask them, is there a better way and easier way to cook hot dogs over fire? And they always have the right answer for that. So this is just an example of the kind of the process, questioning process we go through with an artifact. If I wanted to take it a step further after the students have decided that their original hypothesis of hot dog cooker isn't correct, maybe they have no more guesses left, then I might bring out a candle or even a lump of beeswax. And usually that's all it takes, is that one extra clue that helps them understand maybe what this thing is, if they've ever had an experience with making candles. They'll often go, if they see a candle, they'll think it's a candle holder because the shape fits. But I think you get the idea that after I've taken something out of context to force them to go through that questioning process, it's much harder to do when you're looking at something that's familiar than it is to do with something that's unfamiliar. Then I begin to add some layers to it. Those are the clues or that is the context. And that helps to build the story of the object or give the object some life of its own.