Youth Education

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Youth Education

Loan Boxes

Our Loan Boxes are a FREE way for you bring hands-on Arkansas history to your classroom. Each box has a different theme and contains reproduction objects to touch, feel and use to better understand pioneer living and technology. Books and print materials expand on the topic.

Click on the name of each of the listed Loan Boxes to see what they contain.

The Arkansas Traveler is a story, a tune and a painting - all famous beyond our borders by the late 1850s. This box sheds light on all three, plus the image they gave the state. The painting shows at least 20 items a typical Arkansas pioneer family used every day: gourds, powder horn, coon skin cap, fiddle, axe, logs. This loan box contains replicas of all of them!

The book for young children, Charlie Needs a Cloak, inspired this box, which contains replicas of most items illustrated in the book. It is a lesson in sheep and wool and how the wool is washed, carded, dyed, spun, woven and made into a new cloak for Charlie the shepherd. Arkansas pioneers went through the same process to have wool for their mittens.

This box explores Arkansas's musical symbols: the fiddle, the square dance and the Arkansas Traveler tune. With DVDs and recordings, students can see a dance, and learn to do it; see a fiddle being played, and hear its history; and see a typical string band and learn how pioneers kept time with music. Students can play the spoons, jug, washboards and gourds that are included.

Arkansas pioneers made their homes, their meals and their clothing from the forest's trees and berries, their crops, wild and domestic animals, even the bees. This box has examples of the original resources - like a cow's horn - and the things that came from it, like a canteen, powder horn, and horn cup and spoon. Reuse and recycle is nothing new!

This is a little of everything that showed up in a pioneer's life, rather than a concentration on one topic. Themes touched upon include lighting, textiles, school, play and corn.

The Louisiana Purchase was one of the largest land purchases in American History. This topic covers an incredibly large range of perspectives and information. Inside the loan box you will find 3 different ways to explore the Louisiana Purchase. “Before the Purchase” looks at the Native tribes to Arkansas and the events leading up to 1803. “Exploring the Purchase” focuses on the Hunter and Dunbar expedition into unknown territory. And “After the Purchase” covers the survey work that led to Arkansas as a Territory and eventually statehood.

In the 1930's, older men and women who had been enslaved, or whose parents had lived during the time of slavery, were interviewed about their life before freedom. As these men and women visited with the interviewers, they remembered the corn husk mattresses they slept on, the wooden spoons they ate with, the rows of cotton they hoed and picked. Those and other memories generated the contents of this box. This box provides teachers with the materials and opportunity of primary and secondary sources, many from Arkansans. For every item inside the box, you will find a primary source included that mentions the item.

Combine Loan Boxes with visits to historic homes for more in-depth study.

Loan boxes are free to check out. Fill out the online form below or call to reserve a loan box for a week (or more, for longer distances).

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Chapters in Arkansas History

Chapter by chapter, get your students excited about Arkansas history! Chapters in Arkansas History is a series of educational materials produced by Historic Arkansas Museum especially for use by Arkansas teachers and students. Each chapter introduces a new subject. The chosen topic of a chapter is interpreted through historical fiction, short news features, illustrations, questions and answers and suggested activities. Teacher assessments and bibliographies are included.

Chapters is written to upper elementary and middle school students. Although the topics are prompted by programs offered at Historic Arkansas Museum, they stand alone and readers needn't take part in a museum program to benefit from the information.

Click below for a printable version of the following issues of Chapters in Arkansas History.

Camp Historic Arkansas

A week full of summer fun for kids entering 4th through 6th grade! Campers spend the week learning about life in Arkansas in the 1800s, doing actvities like: