Hickory Hill offers a variety of free traveling trunks and exhibits to meet the needs of schools that cannot travel to Thomson for an in-person field trip experience. Each trunk focuses on a specific topic drawn from the Georgia Standards of Excellence, and includes primary sources, reproducibles, lesson plans, and activity guides for teachers to use as they see fit. Poster exhibits are also accompanies by educator resource binders with lesson plans and background information. Each trunk and exhibit can be checked out for up to a month, and we recommend making a reservation in advance. We deliver and pick up trunks and exhibits at schools in the CSRA, and are happily to work with schools farther afield to make arrangements for checkout.

Traveling Trunks

Native Americans / Journey Home

Third Grade

GSE Met: SS3H1, ELAGS3RI1, ELAGSE3RI7

This board game from PBS Learning Media encourages students to work cooperatively to answer questions about Native cultures to return safely home.

  • Game Board, Game Cards, Game Pieces

  • Books and Primary Sources about the Five Tribes

  • Teacher Resource Binder with Three Activities

Civil War Soldier

Fourth Grade or Eighth Grade

GSE Met: SS4H4A; SS4H5B,D,E; SS8H5, ELAGSE8RI1 Information Processing Skills 1, 6, 10 & 11

The primary sources in this trunk help students think about the Civil War from a more human perspective. Students use primary sources to answer the following questions: Who was allowed to be a soldier? What was daily life like for soldiers? & What was life like in the South in the immediate after math of the war?

  • Union uniform, haversack, and canteen

  • Five lesson plans and activities with background resources

  • Resource books

  • Primary Source documents

Harlem Renaissance

Fifth Grade

GSE Met: SS5H2, ELAGSE5RL2, 4 & 7 ELAGSE5SL1 & 4

Explore the musicians, writers, and artists who made the Renaissance uniquely American. Great for a Gallery Walk!

  • Biography Cards

  • Three Activities and Background Information

  • Artifacts and Primary Sources

King Cotton

Eighth Grade

GSE Met: SS8H4, SS8H6, SS8H7, SS8H8, SS8E2

Explore how integral cotton was and is to the Georgia economy through artifacts and images.

  • Model of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin

  • Primary Sources

  • Lesson Plan and Background Information

  • Cotton in the Classroom Kit from Farm Bureau

Famous Trials

8th Grade, and High School US History

GSE Met: SS8H4E, SS8H7B, SS8H11A, SSUSH8E, SSUSH13C, SSUSH20B

Produced in conjunction with StreetLaw, these lesson plans and primary source binders contain everything you need to teach the Major Trials in American History.

  • Worchester v. Georgia

  • Marbury v. Madison

  • Scott v. Sanford

  • Plessy v. Ferguson

  • Brown v. Board

 

Traveling Exhibits

National Archives Pop-up Displays

Hickory Hill is the home of two of the National Archives Pop-up Displays: The Bill of Rights and You and Rightfully Hers! Both of these exhibits can be checked out by schools for free for up to six weeks at a time and are accompanied by a resource binder with lesson plans and background information.

Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow

This exhibit was designed to accompany a larger exhibition put together by the New York Historical Society. The mini exhibit includes eight posters and an educators guide with resources and lesson plans. According to the Historical Scoiety’s website, “Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow explores the struggle for full citizenship and racial equality that unfolded in the 50 years after the Civil War. When slavery ended in 1865, a period of Reconstruction began, leading to such achievements as the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. By 1868, all persons born in the United States were citizens and equal under the law.”

Smithsonian Poster Exhibitions

Journey Stories

Journey Stories is a poster exhibit made up of seven panels that explores the migration of different people groups through time in America. According to the Smithsonian, “For four centuries, movement, across short distances and far, has shaped America. Our nation’s history is a patchwork of many stories, woven over time from the voyages of people—voluntary and involuntary—who traveled to build new lives state-to-state, across the continent, and from around the world.” The exhibit comes with an education resources binder with lessons and background information.

Picturing Women Inventors

Picturing Women Inventors is an eight panel exhibit that explores the contributions of a number of female inventors working in the United States. The exhibit also challenges the viewer to think of themselves as an inventor. This exhibit comes with a curriculum guide and lesson plans.

A Place for All People

This poster exhibit was designed to introduce the public to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. A Place for All People comes with 20 posters and a comprehensive educators guide. According to the Smithsonian, “ A Place for All People will evoke the power of oration and freedom stories, the brilliance of artistic achievement, and the soaring heights of cultural expression, philosophy, sports, and politics. In addition to profiling the long struggle to create the Museum, the building’s architectural design and its prominent location on the National Mall, the poster exhibit is a survey of the African American community’s powerful, deep and lasting contributions to the American story.”

World War I: Lessons and Legacies

This eight poster collection explores the history of World War I and its lasting impact on the United States. According to the Smithsonian, “From the Great Migration to the 1918 flu pandemic and from the unionization movement to women's suffrage, World War I led to pivotal changes in America's culture, technology, economy, and role in the world. It redefined how we saw ourselves as Americans and its legacy continues today.”

Check Out

Please fill out the Request Form and email it to our Educator, Ms. Franke L. Smith at fsmith@hickory-hill.org.