Lincoln Museum is ‘unboxing history’ with a selection of loan kits available to take away and enjoy at home or school.
Loan kits covering different aspects of the county’s history are helping residents of all ages get ‘hands on’ with their heritage.
Crack open a Roman loan kit from Lincoln Museum and you’ll find Roman coins, pots, mosaics, and brooches. Peculiarly, you might even find dice and, reading through the booklet, you’ll discover how the Romans used dice for a variety of games. It’s even thought they would swallow them to avoid being caught gambling.
In another case you’ll find everything you need to reenact your own Tudor banquet – complete with mock boar’s head centrepiece.
The loan kits were created by the council’s Investigate Learning team to complement the work the team does with school groups and provide a valuable resource for schools to use in the classroom.
But it’s not just teachers and pupils that can benefit from the kits; they are available to everyone and have been used in a variety of different ways.
Learning officer, Linda Verney, explains: “We’ve had care homes hire our 1950s kits, packed with objects their residents would remember from their youth, to help them reminisce. They’re particularly useful for dementia patients who can touch all the different objects and even smell some – like 50s soaps – to help them reconnect.
“A couple of years ago we even had someone hire a loan kit to add a wow factor to their family Christmas quiz!”
Loan kits cover a variety of topics, from fossils, the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, the medieval period, the Tudors,
As well as history, there are also loan kits that connect you with art, featuring replicas of pieces held in the Usher Gallery’s art collection, to help inspire your own art or form part of a temporary exhibition.
The kits contain a mixture of real artefacts and replicas that you can handle, and comes with an in-depth information booklet about the objects or artworks.
Hiring a loan kit costs just £20 per week – Saturday to Saturday – and can be arranged by visiting www.investigatelearning.com/loans-kits and completing the enquiry form. On the website you’ll also find a full list of all the kits available.