FIELD TRIPS - MUSEUM
Tours
Engaging, visual, and hands-on learning about Kansas history.
Self-Guided Visits
Activity guides focus students and provide structure to their experience. Print and bring along or pick up free copies on-site.
Kansas Museum of History
785-272-8681
FAX 785-272-8682
kshs.education@ks.govkshs.education@ks.gov
KINDERGARTEN - GRADE 2
Museum Activity Guide: Bingo
ALL AGES
Explore the gallery individually or in a group to locate photographs on our bingo card. This is a fun way to learn in our gallery!
Tip: Print portrait, one page, one side, unfolded.
KINDERGARTEN - GRADE 2 (AGES 5-7)
Guided Tour: Lucy Goes to Oregon
Length: 45 minutes
The museum’s youngest visitors are introduced to life on the Oregon-California Trail through this interactive tour. Groups listen to a short story about a little girl, Lucy, who travels to Oregon with her family. Students learn what travel was like before cars and hotels existed. Children pack a small covered wagon with supplies for the journey before visiting the full-size covered wagon in the museum gallery.
Resource: Read Kansas! I-6 card 1
KINDERGARTEN - GRADE 2
Museum Activity Guide: A "Night" at the Museum
Explore beds from long ago in the Museum gallery, compare them, and then draw one of your own.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, one fold.
GRADE 1
Guided Tour: American Indian Homes in Kansas
Length: 75 minutes
Students learn how Kansas Indians built shelters using only natural resources found on the prairie. They will compare and contrast construction techniques of a full-size Cheyenne tipi, a Wichita grass lodge, and a model of a Pawnee earth lodge. At the end of the tour, students get to set up a tipi, go inside, and step into the past.
Resources: Read Kansas! P-6 cards 1-4
GRADE 1
Museum Activity Guide: Homes on the Range
Follow the clues then look, listen, and touch to learn more about three different Kansas homes.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, one fold.
GRADES 1 - 6
Guided Tour: Rural School Days—Kansas in 1920
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: $3 per student. This tour does not include admission to the Kansas Museum of History. You may choose to add a self-guided visit for an additional $3 per student.
This one-hour living history program offers a glimpse into a typical one room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairie. Upon arrival, students will take a short walk on our nature trail to arrive at the 1920s Stach School. Our schoolteacher will briefly greet students before leading them in authentic lessons in recitation, arithmetic, geography, reading, and orthography.
Note that Stach School has no electricity and is heated by a coal stove.
For younger students, please make it clear that our teacher is pretending.
Resource: Rural School Days: Kansas in 1920 Teacher Packet (PDF)
GRADE 1
Guided Tour: Wichita—People of the Grass Lodge
Length: 60 minutes
Students experience the traditions of the Wichita Indians as they grind corn on a stone matate, explore reproduction artifacts, and view an authentic grass lodge, tipi, and model of an earth lodge. This tour emphasizes the role of the prairie environment in determining how the Wichita met their basic needs of food, shelter, and clothing.
Resource: Read Kansas! (PDF)
GRADE 2
Museum Activity Guide: Solving the Mystery of Missing Parts
Locate different forms of transportation in the museum, then sketch in the missing parts to finish the picture.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, one fold.
GRADE 2
Guided Tour: Wagons, Wheels, and Wings
Length: 75 minutes
This tour takes students through time as they explore different forms of transportation in the museum. Students will visit a covered wagon, steamboat, train, car, and airplane. How did these forms of transportation come to be? What do we need in our environment to make them work well? Students will leave with a better understanding of how technology changes our world.
Resource: Read Kansas! P-10 (PDF)
GRADES 3 - 5
Museum Activity Guide: Bingo
ALL AGES
Explore the gallery individually or in a group to locate photographs on our bingo card. This is a fun way to learn in our gallery!
Tip: Print portrait, one page, one side, unfolded.
GRADE 3
Museum Activity Guide: Comparing Kansas Communities
Learn about how artifacts tell a story about the people who used them.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, one fold.
GRADE 4
Museum Activity Guide: Getting to Know Famous Kansans
Learn about famous Kansans featured in the museum. Then sketch, inscribe a tombstone, write an acrostic poem, or cast a movie script about your favorites.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, two folds.
GRADES 4 - 12
History Lab
Option 1: How do primary sources teach us about Kansas? This brief introduction to primary and secondary sources can help students understand how the things from long ago tell a story. Add this introduction to your guided tour for free. 25 students per session.
Option 2: For a more detailed look at primary and secondary sources, book a 60-minute session for $3 per students. 25 students per session.
Preregistration required for both options.
GRADES 4 - 12
Guided Tour: Museum Gallery Highlights
Length: 60 minutes
The museum's main gallery tells the exciting story of Kansas and the people who made this land their home from prehistoric times to the present. On this tour, docents provide insight into the objects on display and their significance to the history and culture of the state. This overview includes topics such as American Indians, the Santa Fe and Oregon-California Trails, Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War, and the 1880 AT&SF train. The tour can also be customized to meet your interests. Note that this tour can accommodate up to 100 people.
GRADE 4
Guided Tour: Oregon or Bust!
Length: 75 minutes
This tour allows students to become part of a family who actually traveled on the Oregon-California Trail. Before arriving, students should conduct lessons included with this booking, to calculate what to pack for their journey. Once here, each family is assigned a red wagon with canvas top as they pull them over our nature trail and learn of hardships along the way. Families will gain or lose points based on their decision making. Will they all make it to Oregon? After the tour, teachers will let them know of their fate back in their classroom.
Resource: Read Kansas! (PDF)
GRADE 4
Guided Tour: Kansas Entrepreneurs—Risk Takers and Pizza Makers
Length: 90 minutes
This tour shares the contributions of famous Kansas entrepreneurs highlighted in the museum, including Joseph McCoy, Fred Harvey, Walter Anderson, and the Carney brothers of Pizza Hut fame. At the end of the tour students will make a personal-size pizza using the "standardized" techniques learned on tour. While the pizza is baking, students will be challenged to "piece" together the stories of other Kansas entrepreneurs: Clyde Cessna, Gordon Parks, Walter Chrysler, Takeru Higuchi, and Olive Ann Beech.
Resource: Read Kansas! (PDF)
GRADES 1 - 6
Guided Tour: Rural School Days—Kansas in 1920
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: $3 per student. This tour does not include admission to the Kansas Museum of History. You may choose to add a self-guided visit for an additional $3 per student.
This one-hour living history program offers a glimpse into a typical one room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairie. Upon arrival, students will take a short walk on our nature trail to arrive at the 1920s Stach School. Our schoolteacher will briefly greet students before leading them in authentic lessons in recitation, arithmetic, geography, reading, and orthography.
Note that Stach School has no electricity and is heated by a coal stove.
For younger students, please make it clear that our teacher is pretending.
Resource: Rural School Days: Kansas in 1920 Teacher Packet (PDF)
GRADES 4 - 5
Guided Tour: Rural School Days—Kansas in 1920
Length: 4 hours
Cost: $6 per student. The tour does not include admission to the Kansas Museum of History.
This four-hour living history offers a glimpse into a typical one room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairie. Upon arrival, our schoolteacher will set the stage for what school was like in 1920. A brief introduction to the Mission School on site is also included. Then students will take a short walk on our nature trail to arrive at the 1920s Stach School. Our schoolteacher leads students in authentic lessons in recitation, arithmetic, geography, reading, and orthography. Students also practice penmanship with pen and ink and participate in a spelling bee. During the lunch break, games of this time period offer more fun. Note that Stach School has no electricity and is heated by a coal stove.
Resource: Rural School Days: Kansas in 1920 Teacher Packet (PDF)
GRADE 4
Guided Tour: Westward Ho!
Length: 60 minutes
During the mid-1800s, thousands of families traveled through Kansas in covered wagons. Most were heading west in search of land, gold, or a more healthful climate in which to settle. This tour focuses on westward expansion, comparing the Santa Fe and Oregon-California trails. A hands-on component allows students to explore items used and carried on the trails.
Resource: Read Kansas! (PDF)
GRADE 5
Museum Activity Guide: Artifact Scavenger Hunt
Find artifacts in the museum and answer questions about them as you delve into their fascinating stories.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, one fold.
GRADES 6 - 8
Guided Tour: Rural School Days—Kansas in 1920
Length: 60 minutes
Cost: $3 per student. This tour does not include admission to the Kansas Museum of History. You may choose to add a self-guided visit for an additional $3 per student.
This one hour living history program offers a glimpse into a typical one room schoolhouse on the Kansas prairie. Upon arrival, students will take a short walk on our nature trail to arrive at the 1920s Stach School. Our schoolteacher will greet students briefly before leading them in authentic lessons in recitation, arithmetic, geography, reading, and orthography. Note that Stach School has no electricity and is heated by a coal stove. For younger students, please make it clear that our teacher is pretending.
Resource: Rural School Days: Kansas in 1920 Teacher Packet (PDF)
GRADES 6 - 12
Museum Activity Guide: The Real Deal—Primary Sources
Find the following primary sources to study, describe, and compare: a poster, photograph, artifact, and a written document.
Tip: Print landscape, one page, two sides, two folds.
GRADES 7 - 8
Guided Tour: Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War
Length: 60 minutes
This tour introduces students to the action in Kansas during the Territorial Era (1854-1861) and the roles that Kansans played during the Civil War. A museum docent provides stories and insight about the people who lived in Kansas during these turbulent years. Students then examine artifacts to decide who used them.
Resource: Read Kansas! (PDF)
GRADES 7 - 12
History Lab
Option 1: How do primary sources teach us about Kansas? This brief introduction to primary and secondary sources can help students understand how the things from long ago tell a story. Add this introduction to your guided tour for free. 25 students per session.
Option 2: For a more detailed look at primary and secondary sources, book a 60-minute session for $3 per students. 25 students per session.
Preregistration required for both options.
GRADES 7 - 12
Guided Tour: Museum Gallery Highlights
Length: 60 minutes
The museum's main gallery tells the exciting story of Kansas and the people who made this land their home from prehistoric times to the present. On this tour, docents provide insight into the objects on display and their significance to the history and culture of the state. This overview includes topics such as American Indians, the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War, and the 1880 AT&SF train. The tour can also be customized to meet your interests.
Note that this tour can accommodate up to 100 people.
