Curriculum Materials

These hands-on lessons are linked to the state Core Curriculum Content Standards and teach students how to interpret documents and artifacts, and can include writing activities, role-playing, and art projects. Whether you are teaching geography or the Civil War, Colonial times or the Industrial Revolution, these lessons use unique resources from the Historical Society’s museum and library collections and give your students the New Jersey perspective on a larger theme or topic in history.

• The Story of Cudjo (Jack) Banquante

Cudjo Banquante’s story is one of hardship and suffering as an enslaved man and soldier. But, despite his struggles, he not only survived a lifetime of adversity, but thrived and prospered as a free man.

• What’s Cooking – A Colonial Recipe

The recipe page from The Ashfield Recipe Book allows students to gain information about colonial life. In analyzing this primary material example, students will use a recipe page to find out about colonial foods and daily practices and employ mathematical applications in everyday life. They will compare and contrast the world they know today with the past.

• The Dressmaker

The photograph of a dressmaker will allow students to gain information about women’s jobs. In studying and responding to the photograph, students can explore women’s jobs of the past. Used in conjunction with other objects in this kit, students can place this information and the history of women in a broader context.

• Map of Newark in 1668

The map depicting Newark in 1668 provides an alternative method of teaching map skills and history. Students will be able to place information and the history of an early American settlement in a broader context. They will compare and contrast the world they know today with the past.

• Gaslight Advertisement

Analyze this ad to explore changes in lighting and understand what people of the past thought would make their lives more comfortable.

• Changing Geography

Transportation is the moving of people and goods from one place to another and connects one place with many others. Location is an important reason why communities begin and grow. There are many forms of transportation students can identify with and each kind has played a major role in the development of communities in New Jersey. The state’s location bordering two major cities —New York City and Philadelphia — and two surrounding rivers serving as harbors—the Delaware and the Hudson Rivers — has shaped New Jersey’s role in the United States as a “pathway” of goods, such as food or clothing, and people. In this section students will focus on one method of transportation, the automobile, and how people have come to rely on cars every day. Through the examination and comparison of present and past New Jersey road maps students will come to realize how the construction of roads and highways reflected the prominence of cars.

• From our American Stories Curriculum:
  • Ann Butler’s Copybook:  Learning by Doing: Math and Measurement ­ Then and Now
  • The Kearny Deed:  Learning by Doing: A Deed for New Jersey
  • The Knapsack:  A Day in the Life of a Knapsack
  • The Multiphone:  Learning by Doing: Design a Music Machine

• Jersey Journeys, our quarterly history newspaper for students.