Educators

Enrich your instruction with Great Chicago Stories, an award-winning suite of twelve historical fiction narratives and supporting classroom resources. Download the narratives and unit plans, which were written and classroom-tested by local teachers. Use the interactive history map to click on then-and-now images of locations from each narrative. Investigate historical evidence using question prompts and More

Investigate artifacts from these remarkable decades to learn about the fads and fancies that shaped Chicago in the late twentieth century. Smiley Face Circle Stories Students will explore artifacts from the 1970s to learn about the fads and fancies that shaped this remarkable decade. They will then write collaborative “circle stories” about the objects. Since More

Designed for children ages 6 to 12, My Chicago uses the symbols and design of the city’s flag to explore our rich and diverse history. The curriculum illustrates Chicago’s past and present by drawing on the Museum’s collections, including a variety of photographs, documents, and images of artifacts. The activities are appropriate for use in the classroom More

From bicycles to electric trains to paper dolls, Chicagoland was once home to an enormous toy industry. Chicago companies brought new kinds of toys to the market, including transportation toys, like Tootsie Toys, and construction toys, such as Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. This unit will introduce students to the inventors of these toys, explore More

The Teen Chicago collection contains one hundred oral histories about growing up in Chicago during the twentieth century. This collection was created as part of the Teen Chicago Project, a multiyear initiative to expand teenage involvement at the Chicago History Museum. A fifteen-member Teen Council was hired and trained to conduct interviews between October 2003 More