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Bring the Museum into Your Classroom

UPDATE: 16 MAR 2020

In response to these developments and to support the health and wellbeing of visitors, the museum has taken steps to lessen the possibility of spreading germs. The Tex-kit program, which provides hands-on artifact trunks to area schools for classroom instruction, has been suspended.

 

We offer a small collection of artifact trunks also called Tex Kits for loan to K-12 classrooms. Each kit has accompanying TEKS-based lessons, images, and worksheets designed to enhance your classroom learning experience.

They may be checked out for up to 2 weeks and must be picked up in person at the museum. Please see below for more information on payment, guidelines and more.

CLICK BELOW TO BOOK YOUR TEX KIT:

"Texas Quilts: Stitching Culture and Math" Tex Kit

This New Tex Kit incorporates activities that inspire cross curricular connections and will teach your students how quilting has become a timeless art form that combines history, culture and geometry. Recommended for grade 4.

Kit includes:

  • Small quilt
  • 10 quilt squares with different geometric shapes in them
  • Laminated photos of quilts with historical and cultural information
  • 2 Children’s books: The Quilt Story and The Keeping Quilt
  • An old shirt
  • A bag of cotton with seeds
  • 10 sets of tangrams with puzzle sheets

"Gone To Texas" Pioneers Tex Kit

To many people in the 1800s, Texas was a land of opportunity. The pioneers who came encountered challenges and hard work, but they found a new home and a new life. Corn, cotton, and wool were staples and washboard and a sad iron were common objects for a Pioneer woman! See these items and more with this kit, which examines life on the early Texas frontier. Recommended for grades 3-8.

Kit includes:

  • Plow head
  • Seed dibble
  • Bag of wool
  • Carders
  • Wool sock
  • Knitting needles
  • Darning egg
  • Quilt square
  • Washboard
  • Lye soap
  • Sad iron
  • Corn husk doll
  • Rag ball stuffed with cotton
  • Homemade clay marbles
  • Corn husk spindle with spun thread

Cowboys and Cattle Drives Tex Kit

The cowboy is a true Texas icon. Discover the Spanish roots of this American tradition and learn about a day on the dusty trail in the 1870s by getting up close and personal with everyday objects that cowboys used. Branding irons, boots, and barb wire bring stories of longhorns and chuckwagons to life. Recommended for grades 4-8.

Kit includes:

  • Hat
  • Boot
  • Chaps
  • Bandana
  • Stirrup
  • Horseshoe
  • Spur
  • Gloves
  • Long johns
  • Harmonica
  • Branding iron
  • Lasso
  • Barb wire

"One-Room Schoolhouse" Tex Kit

The pioneers brought the idea of the importance of education with them when they came to Texas. 19th century schools not only provided this but also became gathering places for the community. Explore the story of Texas schools 125 years ago using slates, McGuffey Readers and an old-fashioned school bell! Recommended for grades K-4.

Kit includes:

  • Bell
  • Set of McGuffey Readers
  • Elementary spelling book
  • Set of report cards
  • Slate boards
  • Bag of chalk
  • Quill
  • Inkwell
  • Dunce cap
  • Drinking gourd
  • Rag doll
  • Marbles
  • Lunch pail with egg and biscuit
  • Rag ball

"People of the Plains" Tex Kit

Life of the Plains Indians revolved around the majestic American Bison. Bison long roamed the Great Plains of North America in massive herds, and Plains Indians followed them for seasonal hunts, including into the grasslands of Texas! Explore how the Plains Indians relied on bison for food, shelter, clothing, tools, and so much more. Recommended for grades 3-8.

Kit includes:

  • Bison skin with hair
  • Bison skin
  • Leather parfleche
  • Scraper
  • Sinew
  • Sewing kit
  • Moccasins
  • Drum
  • Bison bladder
  • Bison horn
  • Bison hoof
  • Bison scapula
  • Rawhide and rawhide container
  • Bison chip

With Domingo Leal in San Antonio

This hands on learning experience allows students to participate, imagine, compare, contrast and immerse themselves in a day in the life of Domingo Leal, a ten-year-old boy living in San Antonio during the 18th century. This is a great SA300 activity that you can incorporate in your classroom! Recommended for grade 4.

Kit includes:

  • Digital copy of the book With Domingo Leal in San Antonio, 1734 by Marian L. Martinello and Samuel P. Nesmith
  • Educator's Guide with reproducible TEKS based lessons
  • Character introduction power point
  • Hands on artifacts and costumes
  • Artifact analysis activity worksheet

Giant Traveling Map

The Giant Traveling Map is an oversized vinyl floor map with a trunk of activities and manipulatives that can be used in many different ways. This is a great way for your students to engage with geography and explore the power of maps! The Giant Map of Texas is 12.5 ft x 12.5 ft square. For 4th grade and up.

Kit includes:

  • Let’s Explore Texas: WalkAbout
  • A Shapely State
  • Regions of Texas
  • Everything is BIG in Texas: Cities and Population
  • Legend-ary Skills
  • Exploring and Trading Across Texas
  • Creatures Great and Small
  • Show Me Texas: Cultural Geography
  • Wet, Dry, and Wild Rivers of Texas
  • Urban Population Patterns in Texas: Using Census Data 2010
  • Settlement of Texas Towns
  • Texas Treasure Hunt

PRICING

  • $10 for each kit

GUIDELINES FOR LENDING MATERIALS

  • Available for K-12 classrooms.
  • May be checked out for up to 2 weeks. If more time is desired, a second reservation must be completed before the end of the first 2 weeks.
  • Payment must be made in advance.
  • Reservations are required at least 2 weeks in advance and are subject to availability. Call (210) 458-2291 or email texkits@utsa.edu.
  • Borrower must arrange dates and times to pick up and return a trunk to the Museum between the hours of 7:30am and 4:00pm Monday through Friday.
  • Borrower agrees to check all items against the inventory list when the trunk is checked out and again when it is returned.
  • Items will not be cleaned, repaired, retouched or altered in any way without specific approval. Please notify the ITC of any damages.

PAYMENT GUIDELINES

  • Once you have made a Tex Kit reservation you will receive a Tex Kit Loan Acknowledgement via email and must be signed.
  • Payment or Purchase Order must be received 7 DAYS prior to the loan date or reservation will be cancelled. Questions and payment arrangements should be addressed to Eduardo Tijerina at (210) 458-2259 or ITCBusinessOffice@utsa.edu

CANCELLATION POLICY

  • No refunds. We will gladly apply your fee to a different date if available.