Student Programs In the Classroom

To bring the museum experience to your school or learning center, the Heritage Center Museum and the Heritage Center offer two types of in-school programs: outreach kits and in-school presentations.

In response to a survey of elementary teachers in Lancaster County, the museum offers in-school presentations that are designed to bring local history to life through the use of primary source documents and artifacts. Students will benefit from a museum experience right in the classroom.

Each presentation:

• Enhances the classroom curriculum, assisting teachers in providing content-rich immersion in local history.
• May meet many of the requirements of the Pennsylvania Department of Education's standards.
• Will be conducted by a certified teacher.
• Includes a complete lesson, hands-on activities and follow-up suggestions.
• Includes preparatory materials for teachers.

    Cost per presentation: $50 per class, plus $.29 per mile
    Length: 45-60 minutes

For more information, please E-mail our Education Department or Contact Us.

Early Settlers of Lancaster County

This presentation reaches out to every school individually, revealing the origin of the early settlers in the school's vicinity. The settlers' lifestyles and culture will be explored along with their influence on the area today. There are planned activities to reinforce the information discussed, such as preparing medicinal herbs, dressing in colonial clothing, obeying applicable rules of conduct, enjoying colonial pastimes, and participating in a colonial school spelling/vocabulary lesson. Genuine artifacts from the time period are used to enhance the program.

The Development and Evolution of the City of Lancaster

This presentation demonstrates the development and change of the city and its people through a time span of about 300 years. Students will have a chance to "re-develop the city of Lancaster," delve into the lives of the settlers and see evidence of how the city's past influences life today. Commerce, economics, crime, punishment, architecture, ordinances, public organizations, transportation and construction are recreated through reliving the development of a new city.

Colonial Box Tape Loom Weaving

The colonial experience of weaving narrow strips of cloth, or tape, on a lap-size loom is available for your class. With the availability of thirty looms, each student or pair will learn the age old craft of tape weaving. All materials are included with a personal instructor, or available as a rentable kit. The cost for borrowing the looms only is $5.00 per class plus $10.00 per class material fee.

Famous Lancastrians

Students relive the lives of the Lancastrians who have made an impact in local, state and national history. Teachers may select one or more people from a list of 14, such as James Buchanan, Robert Fulton, John Wise and Sally Anderson Hastings.

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These kits are museum lessons in an all-inclusive container.

• Teachers may rent a kit for 2-4 weeks.
• Each kit contains artifacts, images, art activities, learning activities, teaching resources, and a thorough teacher's guide.
• Relevant Pennsylvania education standards are referenced in each kit.

    Rental Costs: $5.00 per class for two to four weeks
    Delivery Costs (if requested): $10.00
    Pick-up Costs (if requested): $10.00

    Materials Fee (Box Tape Looms only):  $10.00

Available Kits

Amish Arts of Lancaster County Kit

Social studies and art teachers will love this kit! An Amish toy chest houses a myriad of Amish-made art objects, a teacher's guide, activity materials, maps, and other items related to Lancaster County's Amish community. This kit will challenge common misconceptions and help students to understand Amish culture.

Sunshine and Shadow: Lancaster County Amish Quilts

This brand-new kit has been created and developed by three elementary teachers in the Penn Manor School District. It includes a teacher's guide, activity station materials, reproduction quilts, fabric samples, tools and other items designed for use in the classroom. The kit's contents fit neatly into a portfolio-sized soft case. Elementary teachers of grades 3-5 will find this kit useful in touching upon art, family and consumer science, history, language arts and mathematics.

Susquehannock Indian Basket

This tall basket, suitable for grades 3-6, includes a teacher's guide, a variety of touchable artifacts related to local Native American culture, slides/transparencies, and activity suggestions.

Tools of the Penman: A Pennsylvania German Fraktur Kit

Housed in a reproduction penman's kit, this complete unit for grades 4-8 contains a teacher's guide, activity materials, color copies of Fraktur examples, a time line, maps, and other items related to the Pennsylvania German decorated documents known as Fraktur. The activity can easily be done in classroom stations.

Box Tape Loom Weaving

The old-fashioned experience of weaving narrow strips of cloth, or tape, on a lap-sized loom is available for your class.  With the availability of thirty looms, each student or pair will learn the age-old craft of tape weaving, which, in the days before elastic, had many daily uses. All materials are included with a personal instructor, or available as a rentable kit.

For more information, please E-mail our Education Department or Contact Us.

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