Last year, I posted a thread about ideas for an after school program at the middle school where I work. I got some great ideas, most of which I used. It's a new school year and we're starting the after school programs next week. I am debating if I should keep the coin club going. It took a lot of planning for not that many kids. If I start it up again, here are some of the things I will cover: Coins and their history Different designs Odd denominations Preservation Ethics/Integrity Ways to collect Buyer beware Design your own coin Possible trip the FRB in KC Minting process and one of my main focuses will be that every coin has a story. Whether it's an individual coin like the 1933 Double Eagle or a series of coins like the Morgans. If anyone has any ideas that they would like to share, I am very open to suggestions. I might start it next week and just wing it, or I might plan a little more and start it in a month or so.
Do a feature on foreign coins, and finding out where they came from in the world. If I were conducting the after school programme, I would pass out some foreign coins and tell the kids they could keep what they got if they can find the country on the world map. So then it is a numismatic and geography lesson.
coin club A coin club is one area in numismatics where we don't like to see a low population. Might I suggest that you try to interest more kids to join? One way to do this would be to give a talk on coins to entire classes. I recently gave a talk to some co-workers entitled "Numismatics is not for Nerds: Why Coin Collecting is Cool." Something of this nature may prove interesting and draw more kids. I know the ANA has a whole program for coin collecting in the classroom; you may want to look into that already if you haven't yet. You can get donations of coins to hand out, and having some neat coins in hand may also interest budding young numismatists. Anyway...just my thoughts. I hope you do decide to continue the program. Good luck!
Try the contest methods. For one thing have a recruitment contest among the present, it there are any left, previous coin club members. Try flea markets or ebay for large quantities of cheap coins, any kind, for prizes. Being in a middle school you'll loose members as they move on to high school so try an attempt to have the previous members stop in once in a while and give lectures on what they did, accomplished, continued in coin collecting. Even if they don't want to get up in front of a group they could still sit in and answer questions. Look up coin stores or hobby stores in your area and ask if there is anyone there that would like to give a presentation at your school. If not on coins, just collecting as a hobby is still in the same catagory. Error coins are becoming a large fad lately in coin shows. Also, the amount being found and documented is increasing as this fad grows. I suspect that due to the shortage of many types of coins such as Sitting Liberty, that other fields are growing instead. Type sets, error coins and even coin books are becoming collector items. See the back of the Red Book for prices on the older editions as an example. What I mean is try to find some error coins to show the class and ask them to try to find any in thier parents change. Red Book, 2009, pages 401 to 404 has examples and discriptions. Point out how all our coins are made so that as you flip them over from top to bottom they are always verticle. Many other countries have them so you must turn them from side to side to maintain the verticle image. Point out that if they are carefull doing this, they may find coins that are made wrong and the reverse is tilted either to the left of right. Remember that many kids today have the internet. Suggest if they are allowed to join some coin forums such as this one. If enough do they may find that others all over the world also belong to such forums and they could share YN ideas on coins. On the PCGS web site a YN suggested a YN forum but it failed due to lack of participation. One YN there has already written articles for Coin World magazine. Make sure that the after school sessions do not interfere with any other school activities. Mention that any parents are welcome to stop by and even participate. Contact coin magazines such as Coin World, Numismatic News, etc and request any free copies for the classes. Those companies usually send a box of sample magazines to coin shows for free distribution. It's called a write off for advertising.
My daughter loves this page from the US Mint, she just started middle school. http://www.usmint.gov/kids/
These are all great ideas! Thank you guys very much. Keep 'em coming. I'm working out a trip to the FRB in KC. Hopefully, they'll allow it.
I tink if I were a middle school aged kid, the thing that would fascinate me the most about coins is how they are made and what they are made from. How are dies created? What does clad mean? Things like that, but not too technical...remember their age. Even if you aren't a collector, that would make for an interesting topic. Guy~
