For more information or to
book your tour, please contact
To contact our Education
Director please contact Larry Sabourin 540-332-7850 ext. 149 larry.sabourin@fcmv.virginia.gov
Bringing the Past to
Life - Programs for Students
The Frontier Culture Museum is a unique museum where
visitors learn how different groups from the Old World came together in the
early Valley of Virginia to form a new American culture. Here students learn in
a setting where history comes to life through costumed interpretation and
hands-on demonstrations rather than the conventional classroom of text books
and lectures. These hands-on history lessons are presented at four
authentically reconstructed working farms from 1600s England, 1700s Ireland and
Germany, 1800s Virginia, and at a 1700s working forge from Ireland. The
European farms and forge present life as early immigrants to America lived it
in their homelands, and the American farm presents the new American way-of-life
they created together in the Valley of Virginia by the mid-1800s.
In the years ahead, the Museum will expand its
historical exhibits to create new learning opportunities. This expansion will
include an American Indian site, an early settler homestead, an
authentic log house built by a German immigrant, a working grist mill, and an
early Valley of Virginia village. It
will also include the addition of a West African site where the many important
contributions Africans and their American descendents have made to the creation
of the American way-of-life will be presented.
Together these additions to the Museum will provide students with a more
detailed and complete picture of Virginia and America’s past.
Farm Tours: The Frontier Culture Museum
offers a range of field trip programs designed to support the Virginia
Standards of Learning by providing students with a better understanding of the
origins of American culture, the contributions of different Old World groups to
the creation of that culture, and of how people lived in the past. Each of these programs features an extensive,
two-hour tour of the Museum’s historic sites, and includes many opportunities
for hands-on learning with the Museum’s costumed interpreters. Tour guides are provided by the Museum.
The Farming and
Food program offers students an opportunity to learn how the people of the
past raised and prepared their food.
Students are invited to participate in planting and tending crops in the
Museum’s fields and gardens, in harvesting and preparing grains and vegetables
for storage and cooking, and in planning and preparing meals the old way.
Traditional farming tools and practices are featured in this program, as are
historic cooking implements and techniques. This program teaches students that
in the past food did not come from the supermarket, and that having enough to
eat required a lot of time and hard work.
Hands-on activities vary from farm-to-farm and with the seasons. This program is suitable for all ages and
grade levels.
The Daily
Life program is designed to provide students with a glimpse into the daily
lives of people in the past. Students are invited to participate in daily
household activities at each historical site, including common farm and
domestic chores. They will learn old customs and practices, how clothes were
made and houses built, how families, households, and communities were organized
and managed, and what people did for fun before television and
video-games. Hands-on activities vary
from farm-to-farm and with the seasons.
This program is suitable for all ages and grade levels.
The Tools
program is designed to provide students with an opportunity to see and use
a variety traditional hand-tools and implements. The Museum’s costumed interpreters explain
the origins and development of hand-tools, demonstrate their use, and invite
students to assist them in their work.
Students learn how various tools used in the past were made, how they
were used, and how they developed into the tools of today. This program is suitable for all ages and
grade levels.
The Animals
and Farm Chores program is designed to introduce students to the Museum’s
farm animals. Students learn the origins
and history of the various rare and minor breeds of farm animals featured at
the Museum and the important role farm animals played in the lives of people in
the past. Students are encouraged to
look closely at the farm animals and, at times, are permitted to feed and touch
them. Farm animals featured at the
Museum include horses, cows, pigs, sheep, and a variety
poultry. Among the many interesting
things students will learn during this program is that horns do not make a cow
a bull. This program is suitable for
Kindergarten and Grade 1.
The Holidays
in History is a special program offered in December in which students learn
the ways Christmas was or was not celebrated in the past, and trace the origins
of the modern American Christmas. Students Wassail on the 1600s English Farm,
learn the origins of the Christmas tree on the German Farm, learn why the
Ulster Scots refused to celebrate Christmas on the Irish Farm, and Belsnickle on the 1800s American Farm. This program is
suitable to all age groups and grade levels.
The Immigration
program goes to the very heart of the Museum’s mission. Students learn why Germans, Ulster Scots, and
the English chose to leave their homelands for America in the 1600 and 1700s,
what attracted them to America, and why they chose to settle in places such as
the Valley of Virginia. They also learn
what these immigrants contributed to the making of a distinctive American
way-of-life, and how their descendents spread this way-of-life across the North
American continent in the 1800s. This
program is suitable for grade levels 3 to 12, and is especially recommended for
Middle School grades.
Extended Programs:
The Frontier Culture Museum offers
five, intensive Extended Programs that expand upon the themes introduced in the
Farm
Tours. Extended Programs are
available for groups of 15 to 150, are conducted inside one the Museum’s modern
buildings, and last 1 hour. The number
of Extended
Programs available per day is limited and is scheduled on a first-come,
first-served basis. They do not stand
alone and must be done in conjunction with a regular farm tour.
The
Coming to America program offers an in-depth look at the lives of early
immigrants to Colonial America. This program explores their reasons for leaving
their homelands, for coming to America, and for settling in the Valley of
Virginia. Under the direction of a
museum teacher, students are provided the opportunity to see and handle
examples of the possessions these immigrants brought with on them their journeys,
and to participate in role-playing exercises designed to give them a deeper
understanding of the challenges that confronted America’s early
immigrants. This program is suitable for
grade levels 3-12.
The Through
a Child’s Eyes program provides students a glimpse into the lives of
children on a 1850s Valley of Virginia farm.
A Museum teacher guides students through the daily round of farm life
using common tools and objects and role-playing exercises. Students learn the chores typically preformed
by children, the games farm children played, and what children learned in
school in 1850s America. This program is
suitable for grade levels 7-12.
3. Historic
House Building – SOL# - History and
Social Studies VS.1d and f and g, USI.1b and d, VUS.1c
The Historic
House Building program is designed to show students how houses were built
before the invention of power tools. A
Museum teachers explains the steps to building a house, displays and
demonstrates to tools and techniques used by early modern carpenters, and
guides students in building a scale model timber frame house like those
featured at the Museum. This program is
suitable for grade levels 3-9.
·
Songs They Sang and Strings They Strummed – SOL#
- Music
K.1, K.11, 1.11, 2.8, 2.10, 3.9,
3.12, 4.8, 4.12, 5.7, 5.9, MS.1, MS.5, MS.7, HS.5, HS.6
Students
are presented with demonstrations of period musical instruments, as well as
demonstrations of early American songs.
They will also explore the Old World roots American music.
·
Step in Tyme – SOL# - Music K.3,
K.4, 1.3, 2.3, 2.6, 3.3, 3.9, 4.3, 5.3
and Dance DM.12, DI.12, DI.13
Students
participate in period dances from the Old World and the New.
·
Home Spun Leisure Fun – SOL# - English
3.1, 3.5, 4.4, 7.5, 9.3 and History K.2, 1.12, 2.12, 3.12, VS.4 (b), USI.1
(b)(d) and Theatre M.6, M.7, M.8, TI.7, TI.8
Storytelling,
folklore and dramatic parlor games…entertainment with a moral. Students will learn about how people in
Europe and America would pass the time in bad weather and on special occasions.
Programs
with the Wildlife Center of Virginia.
The Museum is pleased to
announce a new series of special programs presented to school groups in
cooperation with the nationally recognized Wildlife Center of Virginia. Central to these programs are animals
rehabilitated by the Wildlife Center with presentations by its educators on the
natural environment and the impact of human settlement and development on the
environment and wildlife. The programs
are conducted at the Museum’s educational facilities and are 45 to 60 minutes
in length. The programs are designed to
complement the Museum’s educational programs and to incorporate Social Science
and Science Standards of Learning in to one all-day field trip.
Combined Museum and Wildlife
Center programs are offered weekly, and must be reserved with a Museum tour at
least three weeks in advance, subject to availability. The charge for a Wildlife Center extended
program is $5 per person in addition to the $5 per student and the $7 per
chaperone cost of the Museum tour. The minimum charge per program is $125. Wildlife Center programs do not stand alone
and must be done in conjunction with a regular Museum tour. Teachers attend all tours and programs free.
Call the Museum for more information .
Programs with the Children’s Art Network
http://www.childrensartnetwork.com
Combined Museum and Children’s Art Network programs are offered weekly. The charge for a Children’s Art Network extended program is an additional $5 per person inside of the Augusta County, Staunton, Waynesboro area; $10 per person outside of the Augusta County area. Children’s Art Network programs must be scheduled in conjunction with a regular Museum tour. Teachers attend all tours and programs free. Call the Museum for more information about this exciting new partnership! 540-332-7850