Traveling Trunks - Field Trip in a Box

Description

Shawnee Town has two different Traveling Trunks programs that are available to you in your own classroom! They are excellent programs for putting students in touch (literally) with history! Teachers or group leaders pick up a rented (refundable $25) trunk full of artifacts and lesson ideas/worksheets/directed research opportunities (a field trip in-a-box) to explore hands-on, primary history resources in their own classroom. The teacher can control and direct the learning or it also allows for a student to do independent learning, as the teacher sees fit.

Families and groups are also welcome to check out trunks too, as they also make great directed thematic learning, compare/contrast, and broad history conversations. Use on your own schedule, get as in depth as your needs and time allow.

1. "History Detectives" allows students to be a museum curator for the day, features 1910's - 1930's artifacts (primary sources) that students work with. We recommend students work in small groups to examine their assigned item, research it and present their findings to you and their class. As the teacher, you will receive a brief guide with a description of each item, its history, and lead questions to ask the students, useful links, and lesson expansion ideas. Kansas curriculum standards this program meets are also included in the teacher's guide.

2. America's Melting Pot - Immigration traveling trunk focuses on Immigration and the many ways and reasons people came to this country, from America’s beginnings to present day. To explore our ethnically diverse country, this program's content also encourages exploring various cultures, keepsakes, and memories, and how all of these factors make America a true melting pot. As the teacher, you will receive a guide with a program overview, props, and discussion prompts which opens up important dialogs into our past and current immigrants, diverse populations, and how America is truly a melting pot of cultures and peoples. It has also been very successful with ESL groups and current students who themselves or their parents are immigrants.