Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Times: The Village is open from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Workshop times vary.
Cost: On Home School Day, homeschoolers (ages 4-17) get in at the discounted rate $12 and one adult is admitted per home school youth at the discounted rate of $17. Additional adults above the 1-to-1-ratio are admitted at the full rate of $30. As always, members get into the Village for free. Workshops are an additional fee to cover materials and staffing.
Join us for our March Homeschool Day! During this Homeschool Day, we will focus on civics, from social reforms to the roles of citizens in the 1830s and today. How did people contribute to make their community a better place? What did it mean to be a good neighbor and community member in the 19th century, and how does that compare to the 21st century?
Home School Days offer you and your family the opportunity to explore the Village and participate in hands-on activities. Sign up for a workshop or explore the Village on your own using one of our many self-guides and scavenger hunts, available at both Museum Education and the Visitor Center.
Admission and Ticketing
On Home School Day, homeschoolers (ages 4-17) get in at the discounted rate $12 and one adult is admitted per home school youth at the discounted rate of $17. Additional adults above the 1-to-1-ratio are admitted at the full rate of $30. As always, members get into the Village for free. The March 19th Home School Day falls within our Kids Free promotion (March and April, 2025) where up to two kids, 17 years old or younger, are admitted for FREE per adult paying for full-price standard daytime admission ($30 at the door, $27 online for adults, $28 at the door, $25 online for seniors age 55 and over). The Kids Free promotion cannot be combined with the Homeschool parent discount ($15), please choose the best tickets for your family.
Workshops are an additional fee.
Purchase admission for Home School Day on March 19, 2025
Things to know:
- Unless otherwise noted, workshops will take place inside or outside the Museum Education building. You may park at Museum Education during the day; click here for directions.
- The Museum Education building closes to the public following workshops due to our afterschool program
- Home School Days are rain-or-shine programs.
- Pre-registration is required for all activities listed below, unless otherwise noted.
- All events are limited to 10 students, unless otherwise noted.
- Please respect the age requirements for the workshops. They are set for the benefit of our educators and all program participants.
- These are not drop-in programs and our staff will have a list of registrants for each workshop.
- Please let us know as soon as possible if you need to cancel your workshop tickets. As these workshops are in high demand, refunds for workshop fees will only be given up to one week prior to the event date, or in the case of cancellation by Old Sturbridge Village.
- Students’ guardians must stay in close proximity of the program location for the entire duration of the activity for safety reasons.
- Workshop times are approximate. Please stay close by during your child’s workshop.
- Meeting locations for these workshops may change. Stay tuned to your email or signage at the Visitor Center on the day of the program for any potential location changes.
- When visiting the Village, please note that children must be accompanied by an adult when visiting the Miner Grant Store or Ox & Yoke Mercantile. Guests are welcome to eat at picnic tables around the campus but due to limited space, guests are not permitted to dine in the Bullard Café unless purchasing food.
Check back the week prior to the event for more information on in-Village activities.
Hands-On Workshops
Workshop Shorties: Make a Campaign Ribbon | 30 Minutes | $5
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 5+)
Sign up for 10:45 (Ages 5+)
Enjoy a quick and fun activity, accompanied by a dash of history. Are you running for president or campaigning for a cause? You decide as we look at examples of ribbons from the Museum’s collection.
Workshop Shorties: Make an Elements Balls | 30 Minutes | $5
Sign up for 11:30 (Ages 5+)
Sign up for 12:15 (Ages 5+)
Enjoy a quick and fun activity, accompanied by a dash of history. Use simple materials to create this group game. We’ll learn how to play this and some other historic indoor games, too.
Workshop Shorties: Make a Collage Portrait | 30 Minutes | $5
Sign up for 1:30 (Age 5+) SOLD OUT
Enjoy a quick and fun activity, accompanied by a dash of history. Drawing inspiration from 19th-century Massachusetts portrait artist Ruth Henshaw Bascom, make a portrait using pastels, ribbon, foil, lace, and watercolors.
Stories and Crafts: Almost Time | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign Up for 10:00 (Ages 5+) SOLD OUT
Enjoy storytime with a classic picture book, then try out a craft relating to the tale. After we read this story about the change of seasons and one boy who can’t wait for maple syrup, we’ll talk about how 19th-century people used this sweet treat. Then, have a taste of maple candy while we create a leaf-focused project.
Stories and Crafts: Sofia Valdez, Future Prez | 50 Minutes | $7
Enjoy storytime with a classic picture book, then try out a craft relating to the tale. Join us as we read this fun and engaging tale about a girl who makes a change in her community. After, we’ll talk about how kids were involved in social causes in the 1830s and plant seeds for your very own Citizens Park.
Stories and Crafts: Planting Stories: The Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpré | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 5+) SOLD OUT
Enjoy storytime with a classic picture book, then try out a craft relating to the tale. Planting Stories is the true story about Pura Belpre, a librarian and champion of bilingual literature. After reading the book together, we will talk about women in literature during the 1830s and make our own puppets like Pura Belpre.
Back to School | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 6+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 10+) SOLD OUT
Even before the Village’s period, most New Englanders were required to pay taxes to support public schools for the community’s children. Schools were a focus of town meetings in Massachusetts, and the District School was an important civic building in the community. Learn about what school was like for students in the 1800s: who went to school at this time, what they learned, and more. Participants will sew a school book, participate in a school lesson, and learn a schoolyard game.
Make a Village | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 6+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 6+) SOLD OUT
What civic buildings, businesses, and other features make a community, today and in the 1830s? What roles did people play, and how were 1830s people involved in their communities? How did they make a difference? During this workshop, participants will compare and contrast the parts of our 19th-century Village to their own community. Then, paint your own miniature wooden Village and citizens.
Hearth Cooking: Cooking with Maple Sugar | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 10+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 6+) SOLD OUT
Follow a 19th-century “receipt” for Tunbridge Cakes, a dessert featuring maple sugar! Together, you will mix up these little cakes and bake them in the open hearth. While they bake, we’ll talk about the what was happening on the farm during the earliest days of spring. Ingredients will include: flour, butter, maple sugar, eggs, rosewater, cinnamon, nutmeg
Make a Fox and Geese Board | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 8+)
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Many games and toys of the 1830s were meant to teach children moral or educational lessons, while others were about strategy. During this session, we’ll focus on strategy as we learn the rules of the classic game Fox and Geese. Then, make a board to bring home with you!
Basic Woodworking: Make a Suet Bird Feeder | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Using hand tools, make a simple wood project to feed the birds in your neighborhood!
Spreading the Word: Make a Broadside | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 8+)
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 6+)
Social reform movements of the 1830s like suffrage, abolition, and temperance relied on broadsides, newspapers, and printed speeches to spread the word about these causes. We will look at period examples of these materials, then create our own broadside to get the message out.
Eagle Reverse Glass | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 10+)
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 8+) SOLD OUT
Eagles abound in the Village’s collection, on signs, porcelain plates, and pieces of glass. During this workshop, participants will create an eagle-focused reverse glass painting, a very popular form of decoration in the early 1800s. While we paint, we will talk about the symbolism of the eagle and why 19th-century people utilized it so often in art.
Stories and Crafts: Lucy Stone | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 10:00 (Ages 6+)
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 8+)
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 6+)
Join us as we read a new book about West Brookfield native and suffragist Lucy Stone. In One Girl's Voice: How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land, we will learn about how Stone found her own voice and helped to make a difference in 19th-century America. Then, make a pennant to support your own special cause!
Make a Butter Paddle | 50 Minutes | $7
Sign up for 11:00 (Ages 10+) SOLD OUT
It’s a butter extravaganza! Participants in this workshop will hone their woodworking skills by making a butter paddle, a small spatula to help separate the butter from buttermilk.
Benevolent Society Sewing Circle | 90 Minutes | $12
Sign up for 10:30 (Ages 10+)
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 10+)
In the 1830s, some women belonged to benevolent societies, groups that worked to improve their communities by supporting causes like suffrage, abolition, temperance, and other social reforms. In this workshop, participants will learn about the ways that women advocated and raised money for these causes while working on an embroidery project.
Memories of the Revolution and the Bunker Hill Monument | 90 Minutes | $12
In September of 1840, a women’s group associated with the Bunker Hill Monument Association held a fundraising fair that raised over $30,000 towards the construction of the monument that would commemorate this important Revolutionary War battle. Women’s clubs from all over had donated crafts and baked goods towards this cause, and some made miniature and elaborately decorated versions of the monument. Participants in this workshop will decorate their own mini Bunker Hill Monument while learning about how 19th-century people remembered the Revolutionary War, and what they did to commemorate it.
Print Workshop: Celebrating the Semiquincentennial | 90 Minutes | $12
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and OSV will be ramping up programming over the next two years to explore the earliest decades of the new nation. During this workshop, we will make our own faux parchment to mimic the material that this founding document was written on. While it dries, we will talk about the impact the Declaration had in the years following 1776 and learn basic calligraphy techniques to practice writing your own special document.
Hearth Cooking: Brooks Cake | 90 Minutes | $12
Sign up for 10:30 (Ages 9+) SOLD OUT
Sign up for 1:00 (Ages 12+)
Follow a 19th-century “receipt” for Brooks cake, a cake made with maple sugar. To raise funds for the antislavery cause, Mary Brooks, Headmistress of the Concord Female Anti-Slavery Society, baked and sold her signature tea cake, widely known as Brooks Cake. It was served at all Concord, Massachusetts, anti-slavery meetings. Participants will make the cake and learn a little about women’s contributions to the anti-slavery movement. Ingredients will include: flour, maple sugar, butter, eggs, milk, currants
Village Tour: Civics and Social Movements | 90 Minutes | $12
Connection to the local community was vital in a town like Sturbridge in the 1830s. So, too, was religion, which played an important role in the everyday lives of most citizens. During this tour, participants will make stops at public sites that would have been important places for 19th-century New Englanders to meet and discuss the important events of the day; as well as sites like the school and households, where children were taught the importance of civic duty and religion. Please note: this tour involves a lot of walking and will last about 1.5 hours. Adults may accompany children on this tour, but the registration spots are for students only.
Village Tour: Women in the 1830s | 90 Minutes | $12
March is Women’s History Month! Take a tour of the Village with an experienced educator to learn more about women in the 1830s. We will focus on the types of labor women did during this time, their involvement in social movements, and more. Please note: this tour involves a lot of walking and will last about 1.5 hours. Adults are welcome to join their child for this tour, but registration spots are for participants only.