60 Boston Lesson Plans and Activities to Prepare for a School Trip

How can I get my students even more engaged during our trip to Boston?

Boston is the perfect place to explore science, American history, and art in more depth.

Many of the sites that you will visit in Boston have developed lesson plans to begin engagement in the classroom. Provide a deeper appreciation for the places you will visit by exploring a focus topic prior to the trip.

See an example of a 3-day customized Boston itinerary 

See an example of a customized Boston itinerary for a band and choral trip

Boston   Lesson   Plans

Freedom Trail Educational Resources:

1. Freedom Trail Podcast
2. Freedom Trail Student Podcast
3. Mission US –  Offical Web Game

Massachusetts Historical Society Lesson Plans, Topics Include:

1. The Adams Family of Massachusetts: A Legacy of Justice in Action
2. Adams Family Foreign Policy: Letters and Diaries from Europe
3. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Birth of Party Politics in America
4. Abigail Adams, the Writer: “My pen is always freer than my tongue”
5. John Adams’s Views on Citizenship: Lessons for Contemporary America
6. John Quincy Adams: One President’s Adolescence
7. Abigail’s War: The American Revolution through the Eyes of Abigail Adams
8. Johnny Tremain and the Members of the Long-Room Club
9. From Tea to Shining Sea: A Primary Document-Based Unit on the Boston Tea Party
10. John and Abigail Adams in Times of Change: the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Smallpox Epidemic during the American Revolution
11. The Siege of Boston: A Document-Based Lesson
12. Creative Collaborators and Communicators: The Abolitionists and their Propaganda
13. Chief Justice William Cushing and the Abolition of Slavery
14. Slavery in Massachusetts, 1630-1860
15. Boston as the Athens of America
16. Deviancy and Reform in Nineteenth-Century America
17. The Massachusetts Civil War Experience
18. Massachusetts Women and the Civil War

Minute Man National Historical Park Lesson Plans, Topics Include:

USS Constitution Museum Lesson Plans, Topics Include:

1. A Sailor’s Life for Me: War of 1812 Curriculum
2. All Hands on Deck: Learning Adventures Aboard “Old Ironsides”

Boston National Historical Park Lesson Plans, Topics Include:  

1. Patriots of Color at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
2. Twisted Strands: Simple Machines and Rope Making in the Charlestown Navy Yard
3. Roxbury during the Siege of Boston
4. Mapping the Battle
5. A Cause Worth Fighting For
6. The Battle of Bunker Hill: Now We Are at War

Plimouth Plantation, Lesson Plans and Activity Topics Include:

1. Teaching and Visiting Plimouth Plantation
2. Thanksgiving Interactive:You Are the Historian
3. Talk Like a Pilgrim
4. Coloring Pages

New England Aquarium Lesson Plans, Topics Include:

1. Blue Impact
2. Fishworks
3. Draw A Fish
4. New England Marine Animal Adaptations
5. Penguins
6. Boston Harbor Seaside Educator Guide
7. Engineering Ocean Currents
8. Modeling the Marine Mammal Dive Response
9. Exhibit Expert: New England Waters

John F. Kennedy Library Lesson Plans, Topics Include: 

1.  Political Debates: Advising a Candidate
2. Analyzing the Rhetoric of JFK’s Inaugural Address
3. Red States, Blue States: Mapping the Presidential Election
4. The President’s Desk: A Resource Guide for Teachers, Grades 4-12
5. 1963: The Struggle for Civil Rights
6. A President’s Day
7. Integrating Ole Miss
8. Leaders in the Struggle for Civil Rights
9. Why Choose the Moon?
10. Americans in Space

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