In 2004, the National Heritage Museum’s curriculum development team created curricula for the third and the fifth grades based on current scholarship and primary source research. The curricula conform to the Massachusetts Department of Education’s history curriculum framework. The third grade unit focuses in local history – students learn about everyday life in colonial Lexington by taking on the roles of real children who lived in the town in 1775. Through exploring family life, farm life, the economy, and community life, students come to understand that English colonists living in Lexington wanted to protect their freedom to own land and to govern themselves. The fifth grade lessons are supplements that explore slavery in New England, taxation, women’s political participation, and self-government in Massachusetts.

We welcome educators to explore and to use these documents. We also hope that they inspire other similar local history curriculum development projects. Please join the conversation about this material through your feedback on our Learning Blog or by writing to us (programs@monh.org).

• Third Grade Cover Pages
• Third Grade 19a: Settling Lexington
• Third Grade 19b: Who am I?
• Third Grade 19c: House and Community
• Third Grade 19d: Farms and Farming
• Third Grade 19e: What is My Job?
• Third Grade 19f: What Can I Buy?
• Third Grade 19g: Lexington’s Tea Party
• Third Grade 19h: April 18 and 19

For instructions for using and background on this unit, click here

Supplementary Material for 5th Grade American History Instruction

• Fifth Grade Title Pages
• Fifth Grade 12: Reasons to Leave
• Fifth Grade 17: The Beginning of Slavery in the Colonies
• Fifth Grade 22a: Taxation and the French and Indian War
• Fifth Grade 22b: Spinning and Spinning Bees
• Fifth Grade 22c: The Not-So Famous Patriots of the American Revolution

For instructions for using and background on these lessons, click here

To return to the Curriculum Page, click here.