Working with archeology in early childhood education to develop historical skills

Abstract

In early educational stages the use of heritage, image and objects in the classroom using a dialogic strategy stimulates curiosity and facilitates addressing issues related to identity, cultural diversity, continuity against change, or causes and consequences. These notions are essential for children to interpret their experiences, understand everyday life and develop historical thinking skills. We present an experience, implemented in a classroom of early childhood education with 5-6 year-old boys and girls in Pamplona, in which object based learning and simulation of the archaeological method are used to develop historical competences; specifically to work the principle of change-continuity and contextualized narration. The results show that, by manipulating and interrogating about the sources, the student body developed skills to observe, describe, ask questions, analise, make comparisons of similarities and differences between past and present or formulate hyphoteses, deductions and inferences. In addition, the student body approached heritage from proximity and individuality to the distant and social. They also developed narrative capacity and historical empathy for the construction of critical, creative and contextualized short stories and explanations.