Plan a field trip to Burlington’s Ireland House Museum and use our Self-Guided Field Trip Guide to add some easy education to your entertainment. This school year, classes and students won’t be going on field trips, but that doesn’t mean your kids have to miss out on the hands-on in-person learning that field trips offer. Take them yourself, and use our Field Trip Guide to help encourage additional learning!
Our Self-Guided Field Trip Guides have been created by Amanda, a Peel Region elementary teacher to help families connect education to the entertainment that comes when visiting one of the many local cultural attractions. This issue is the perfect companion to your Ireland House Museum visit.
Visit Ireland House Museum
Built between 1835-1837, Ireland House at Oakridge Farm was the home of Joseph Ireland, one of Burlington’s earliest settlers. Joseph Ireland and his descendants occupied Ireland House until 1985. In 1987, the City of Burlington purchased the property from the estate of Lucie Marie Ireland Bush and established a museum, restoring the homestead to illustrate three distinct time periods that represent the generations of Irelands who lived in the house: 1850s, 1890s and 1920s.
*Please note, Ireland House itself is closed while social distancing measures are in effect, but there is an awesome virtual, interactive tour available free online.
Visit here when you are studying: Social Studies:
Grade 1: Heritage and Identity: Our changing roles and responsibilities
Describe some of the ways in which people’s roles, relationships, and responsibilities related to who they are and what their situation is, and how and why changes in circumstances might affect people’s roles, relationships, and responsibilities as well as their sense of self.
What does that mean?
Students will be learning about the roles and relationships of people in their lives, including in their community and how they might change, depending on age, or situation – you have different responsibilities at home and at school.
Get the kids thinking:
What do you notice about the kitchen at Ireland House Museum? What is the same and different to your kitchen? How do you think it would be to make a meal and wash the dishes in this kitchen? If you lived in this house in this time, who in your family do you think would do that? Is that different to your family now?
What else do you think you would have to do, being a child in this house? Hint: not just the house but the land too!
Vocabulary: role, responsibility, relationship, respect,
Grade 3: Heritage and Identity: Communities in Canada
Compare ways of life among some specific groups in Canada around the beginning of the nineteenth century, and describe some of the changes between that era and the present day
What does that mean?
Students will be learning about the similarities and differences between life in the 19th century and present day, including both pioneers and First Nations.
Get the kids talking:
Upstairs there’s a bedroom and if you walk through it there’s another bedroom. Who do you think slept there? Are there any clues? If you have someone who takes care of you how is it different nowadays?
What do you notice about the kitchen at Ireland House Museum? What is the same and different to your kitchen? How do you think it would be to make a meal and wash the dishes in this kitchen? If you lived in this house in this time, who in your family do you think would do that? Is that different to your family now?
Look at the lights in Ireland House Museum – how are they different to the lights in your house?
Think about the First Nations people that lived here – how do you think a new pioneer settlement would change the land? Do you know how the First Nations and pioneer settlements were different? (First Nations often moved seasonally, pioneers tended to build strong buildings and stay in one place – why?)
Vocabulary: trade, First Nations, Métis, Wendat, Anishnawbe, settlement, challenges, seasonal,
Wow, that virtual tour of Ireland House Museum is amazing, and we hope you love our guide to go along with it. If you’re looking to plan your next field trip, check out our other Self-Guided Field Trip Guides to get started.