FOR TEACHERS
Windsor Historical Society offers thematic educational programming and tours of the Society’s exhibitions, historic homes, and surrounding historic landscape. Our guides are experienced with school audiences of all ages. Much of our programming can be adapted for in-classroom presentations. All of our programs have been designed to meet the goals and objectives of the Connecticut Frameworks Social Studies Content Standards.
  • Volunteer Marsha Mason reading to kids
The content of our programs can be tailored to address multiple disciplines, using historical topics to tie in non-historical subjects such as math, science, and language arts. We are happy to work with you to create a program that fits your classroom’s specific needs. Please feel free to contact us if you have any unique requests for your classes and we will do our best to oblige your needs.
RESOURCES

An alphabetized listing of historic houses in Windsor.

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All of the objects and furniture in this 1758 house are detailed reproductions of furnishings the Howard family used there in 1810. Students are encouraged to interact with everything inside the house. Students explore middle-class family life in the early United States through hands-on examinations of objects in each room of the house.

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In this impressive 1767 brick mansion house students learn about upper-class life during the colonial and early U.S. periods. Additional lessons focus on the roles of enslaved people in the Chaffees’ domestic lives and Dr. Chaffee’s profession as an 18th-century doctor.

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The Society’s two galleries cover 400 years of history including the lives of the Native American tribes, English colonists, enslaved people, and immigrants who worked and lived in Windsor. Through displays and activity stations students learn about Windsor’s agricultural, industrial, and civic heritage, as well as the town’s most important historic figures.

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The library houses extensive historical resources relating to the town of Windsor and its people. Highlights include thousands of historic photographs, 17th-20th century manuscripts, family correspondence files, and subject files. Our library also contains local cemetery records, vital records, town reports, local newspapers, school yearbooks, and maps. Computer access is also provided to online databases including Ancestry.com and the historic Hartford Courant archives.

Are you interested in teaching your students primary research skills? Students can use our library resources while visiting the Historical Society. Although library materials cannot be taken to schools, the Society will work with educators to make copies, scans, and photographs available for in classroom use. (photocopy fee $0.25/page)

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The Windsor Historical Society museum collection includes objects from Native American settlements and the founding of Windsor in 1633 through the present. The collection consists of approximately 11,000 objects including decorative arts, fine art, household objects, personal accoutrements, archaeological artifacts, tools, machinery, and equipment. Museum objects can occasionally be brought to classrooms, and photographs of objects can be made available for classroom use.

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Because it’s unlikely we’ll be able to host our spring field trips this year, we’d like to share a few activities from our 5th grade American Revolution field trip that teachers can use with their students.

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