Teaching Resources

Dig deeper into the history of Brooklyn with our free digital curricula and lesson plans.

Don’t miss Teach Archives, our award-winning online resource for teachers and administrators, and our unparalleled curriculum kits designed to give teachers everything they need to plan units on history topics, from innovative lesson plans that draw on primary sources to a comprehensive teacher’s guide and more.

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Free Digital Curriculum & Lesson Plans

Explore pre-Revolutionary New York, Dutch Breukelen, the storied history of sports and more in our digital curricula.

Teaching Resources

Primary Source Packets

Access approximately 100 archivist-curated primary source packets on an array of local history topics from the Civil Rights Movement to Neighborhood History and Gentrification in Brooklyn. Each packet includes thoughtful document-based questions to help students analyze and synthesis primary sources about Brooklyn's people, places and events. Download free copies of our primary source packets.

Lession Plans for Teaching with Primary Sources

Teaching Resources

Lesson Plans for Teaching with Primary Sources

Our team supports K-12 educators to deliver skill-based instruction through a local history lens. Download free, curriculum and standards-aligned lesson plans written by educators that can be differentiated for elementary, middle or high school students.

Teaching Resources

Digitized Resources

Looking for a historic primary source to compliment a lesson plan? Look no further! Access over 200,000 digitized photographs, maps, ephemera, oral history recordings, and more from our archive's Digital Collections. Search by keyword or navigate through the featured collections. You never know what you might find!

Teaching Resources

Brooklynology

The archive will come alive for your students when they read our Brooklynology blog! Archivists tell incredible Brooklyn stories using material from our archive and model how historic newspapers, photographs, and ephemera can tell us so much about where we live. Brooklyn Connections educators are regularly featured on the blog with posts that demonstrate how they teach with archival material.

Teaching Resources

Muslims in Brooklyn

All grades/ages. Explore the long history of Muslim communities in Brooklyn and use oral histories to hear how the experiences of individuals within these communities illustrate historical and cultural themes over time.

Teaching Resources

The Brooklyn Bridge

Grades 2-4. Explore the history, construction, and importance of one of New York's most prominent landmarks: the Brooklyn Bridge.

Teaching Resources

In Pursuit of Freedom

Grades 4–12. The development of the abolition movement in Brooklyn from the end of the American Revolution to the early days of Reconstruction.

Teaching Resources

Mapping Freedom and Slavery

Grades 4–12. Explore the skills, practices, and tools of historians as students study the history of slavery in Brooklyn.

More Digital Curriculum & Lesson Plans

Teaching Resources

Voices of Mixed Heritage

Grades 6-12. Explore concepts of identity through the history and experiences of mixed-heritage people and families.

Teaching Resources

The Civil War: Voices from Brooklyn

Grades 4–12. Highlights from BHS & Green-Wood Cemetery collections, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

More Digital Curriculum & Lesson Plans

Teaching Resources

Exploring Pre-Revolutionary New York: the Ratzer Map

Grades 2–12. One of only four still in existence, this 1770 map depicts NYC in the years before the American Revolution.

Teaching Resources

Dutch Breukelen: Where Brooklyn Began

Grades 2–8. Maps, diaries, cookbooks, ledgers & drawings transform your classroom into a learning lab about 17th-century Brooklyn.

Teaching Resources

Ingenious Innovations

Grades 2–12. Explore the history of innovations and innovators that have left their mark on the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Teaching Resources

Bats, Balls, Nets & Hoops: Stories of Sports in Brooklyn

Grades 4–12. The history of sports in Brooklyn provides a window into American history, from civil rights to urbanization.

TeachArchives.org

Explore our award-winning online resource for teachers, administrators, librarians, archivists and museum educators. Sample exercises and articles provide a new approach to teaching in the archives.

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