Now is the time to pick up one (or two) of those cheap plastic cauldrons you can find just about anywhere at this time of year.  They are great props for a number of themes.  You can use them in classroom mini museums, and dramatic play centers.  I’ve used them with preschoolers through middle schoolers.  Here are some themes they work well with:

• European Life (Dark Ages, Middle Ages, Renaissance)
• Colonial America (and other colonial places)
• Pioneers
• Westward Expansion
• Gold Rush
• Settlers

Basically, people used huge and medium-sized iron pots right up into the 20th century.

• You can create a fireplace in your classroom and hang the pot over the fire.  Have your students build a swivel to swing it in and out over the flames.
• Build a campfire in your classroom.  The students can set the pot in the flames.

These cauldrons were used for

• cooking,
• washing clothes,
• making candles,
• taking baths,
• dyeing yarns and fabric,
• making soap.

If you really want your students to learn what you are studying, let them try it out for themselves.  Buy as many sizes of the plastic cauldrons you can find.  You’ll be amazed at the many ways you can use them!  And you may even use one as a witch’s cauldron one day!