Historic Travellers Rest: How to Make History an Adventure!

Historic Travellers Rest has been providing hands-on history experiences to Middle Tennessee students for more than 20 years.  Today, Travellers Rest provides unique field trip adventures through Nashville’s historic past for more than 10,000 school children a year.  Our goal has always been to make history an adventure. Learning about the past should be an exciting journey for students and teachers alike!

Homeschool groups are invited to book a field trip with
us at any time during the year.  Field trips do require a minimum of 12 paid students and reservations should be made at two weeks in advance.  Find more about our field trip experiences here.

Here at Travellers Rest we love history so much that we want everyone else to love it too and one of the best ways to do so is to make learning about it fun and exciting. Here are some tips on how to make learning about history an adventure:

1. History is always changing - a hidden letter, manuscript or diary can change our understanding of history in the blink of an eye. Remind yourself and students that history never stands still. A fun activity is to do a “what if” game – take a historical event or character and change something around a and imagine how the outcome may have been different.  For example, what might have happened without Paul Revere’s midnight ride?

2. Find ways to connect the past to the present.  History is much more interesting when we can imagine ourselves in the past.  One way to do so is to learn about what life was like for those who came before us. Make or purchase some historic games and toys and for one entire day “unplug” students so that all of their play time is done in the past. 

3. Find history all around you! Look around for history in unexpected places. Think about the landscape all around you and what happened there in the past. A good example would be a forgotten family cemetery or the site of a long-forgotten battleground. 

4. Last, but not least…make history messy! Write with ink and quill pens, play with clay, make hardtack or re-create a battle with bombs made of tissue and baking flour – choose an activity that reinforces what you want to teach/learn and have fun!