Resources for Educators
Free Digital Curricula for Your Classroom
Bring Old North to your school with fully developed multimedia lessons.
Old North Teacher Guide (Grades K – 12): The activities in this guide explore the many aspects of Old North Church and cover a variety of subjects, including arts and STEM, and teach important skills such as interpreting primary sources, organizing data, and constructing an argument.
History Mystery (Grades 3 – 8): Who held the famous lantern signals in Old North Church’s steeple? Watch our three-part video series to solve this “history mystery” while learning to think like a historian.
Behind the Scenes Tour (Grades 5 – 12): Take a half-hour video tour of Old North Church’s most compelling spaces. Learn about the many people who helped build the church and its community over the past 300 years.
Chocolate as a Lens to the Past (Grades 5 – 8): In six different lessons, students are challenged to look at the history of chocolate in Boston from both a historical and scientific perspective while analyzing a variety of primary sources and designing their own scientific investigations.
Cacao and Colonial Chocolate (Grades 9 – 12): This curriculum for high school students traces the history of chocolate from the Maya through colonial Boston and the slave trade to the present day chocolate industry and its connection to child labor.
Illuminating the Unseen Teacher Guide (Grades 9 – 12): This curriculum for high school students is designed to accompany the award-winning Illuminating the Unseen video series, which examines the histories of Black and Indigenous people at Old North Church. This guide helps teachers adapt each episode to the classroom and foster discussions around topics of race, gender, and colonialism.
Bell Ringer’s Agreement (Grades 4 – 8): This lesson provides students with an opportunity to read, decipher, and analyze a primary source document from colonial Boston, Old North’s original Bell Ringer’s Agreement ca. 1750.
If you have questions or would like to learn more about these classroom resources, please email Emily Spence at espence@oldnorth.com.
Interested in bringing your students to Old North? Visit the School Groups page to learn more about the field trips we offer.
For definitions of keywords related to the Episcopal Church, please see this helpful glossary.
