Lesson Plans

With Tenement Museum resources, students become historians. Using our teacher-designed, teacher-tested lesson plans, students engage in inquiry and learn to use critical thinking to interpret objects, oral histories, and primary sources, while making history relevant to today. Our classroom resources support multi-state History-Social Studies and English Language Arts curricula and can be used with or without a museum visit.

We currently offer four kinds of resources for teachers, including unit plans, lesson plans, and family stories. Whichever resource you select, you will find primary sources such as video stories, oral histories, documents, and photos in each. Educators can sort by grade level, unit plan, lesson plan, family stories, or primary source type below.

Be sure to check out our new comprehensive suite of virtual field trips and sign up for our monthly teacher’s newsletter for tips from other teachers, event and webinar information, new resources, and more!

Photo-jose-class
All Grades

José Velez’s 3rd Grade Class Portrait, 1959

Check out who was in José Velez’s 3rd grade class in the Lower East Side of New York...

Document-1880-census
All Grades

1880 Census

See how an immigrant from Germany, Natalie Gumpertz, is supporting her family in 1880.

Photo-103-families
All Grades

Wong, Epstein, and Saez Velez Families

A photo of present-day immigrants, migrants, and their families taken in July 2016.

Photo-picketing-women
All Grades

Photograph of Picketing Women on Strike, 1911

Look at two women fighting for better working conditions in the garment industry in 1911.

Photo-garment-worker-union
All Grades

International Ladies Garment Workers Union 1910 Photograph

View a garment factory that employed many young immigrant women in the early 20th century.

Photo-st-patricks-day
All Grades

1874 Drawing of St. Patrick’s Day Parade

See an artist’s depiction of one of the most important days of the year for Irish...

Document-moore-homes-map
All Grades

Map of the Moore Family’s Homes in 1860’s New York

Track the different neighborhoods an Irish immigrant family lived in and consider why they...

Video-bridget-moore
All Grades

New! Meet Bridget Moore

Watch a Tenement Museum costumed interpreter plays Bridget Moore in 1868. 

Video-Bella-returns
All Grades

Bella Returning to 103 Orchard Street

A child of refugees, Bella Epstein, discusses returning to her childhood home.

LessonPlans_TeachingWithPrimarySources_MS
Middle School

Teaching with Primary Sources: Middle School

Students examine primary source documents in order to reconstruct the immigration story of...

LessonPlans_TeachingWithPrimarySources_HS
High School

Teaching with Primary Resources: High School

Students examine primary source documents to reconstruct part of the history of the...

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Upper Elementary

Teaching with Primary Sources: Upper Elementary

Students use primary source documents to piece together the story of Victoria Confino,...

Tools for Educators

Visit our Teacher Resources page for more tools, programs and information that can enrich learning and understanding about immigration and migration.

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