- Education Program
Virtual Excursions
Thank you for a great experience. We thought it was about as close as you could come to the real thing. The variation of activities and mediums throughout the meeting kept the kids engaged the whole time. Zoe was also fantastic in how she communicated information and the way that she continually involved the kids.
Teacher - Pymble Public School
Live videoconference 10 March 2021
Ask the history experts: Interview an archaeologist & a curator
In this special event your students are invited to ‘ask the history experts’ all about museums, archaeology and history.
Join curator Mel Flyte from Sydney Living Museums, and archaeologist Dr Craig Barker from Sydney University Chau Chak Wing Museum to ask your questions about how they uncover and interpret history. They will reveal significant objects from both museum collections to explain their work.
This event will be streamed live as a zoom webinar.

Cooking Up The Past
Stage 1 | History
In this new virtual excursion, your Stage 1 class will connect live with a museum educator and discuss how food was grown, stored and cooked in the past, in the 1820s kitchen at historic Vaucluse House. During the early years of the New South Wales colony, this house was the home of the Wentworth family and their many servants.
Students will see what’s growing the kitchen garden; investigate how technologies for preparing food have changed from the 19th century to today in the kitchen and dairy; learn how to make butter, so they can make their own and find out how good it tastes on a piece of bread.

Convict work at the Barracks
Stage 2 | History
In this new virtual excursion, your Stage 2 class will connect live with a museum educator and learn about how convicts lived and worked at the Hyde Park Barracks in the early 19th century.
Students will examine historical sources including the World Heritage-listed Hyde Park Barracks building; discover what Sydney was like when convicts arrived at the Barracks; see how the bricks from which the Barracks was built were made by hand; and see clues left behind by convict brick makers.

First Contacts
NEW
Stage 2 | History
In this new virtual excursion, your Stage 2 class will connect live with a museum educator and learn about first contacts between Aboriginal peoples and colonists that arrived as part of the First Fleet and aboard other ships in the early years of the colony of New South Wales.
Students will examine a range of historical sources including artworks and Aboriginal cultural objects and explore the impact of these new arrivals on the Aboriginal peoples of Sydney and the local environment.

A New Home: Female Migrants at the Barracks
NEW
Stage 3 | History
In this new virtual excursion, your Stage 3 class will connect live with a museum educator and learn about female Irish orphans who migrated to Australia in the 1800s and stayed at the Hyde Park Barracks.
Students will look at the factors that led the women to migrate from Ireland, what their journey was like and what happened to them once they were here. They will view the current exhibition and a range of historical sources, including some of the objects these women brought with them. Students will consider the importance of oral history and complete an empathy activity based on the migration experience.

Solve it using sources
COMING SOON
Stages 3 & 4 | History
This new history skills based virtual excursion program is focused on analysis of source material to understand historical events and peoples.
It is based at two Sydney Living Museums’ sites, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Hyde Park Barracks and Susannah Place in Sydney’s Rocks area, and explores the archaeology of both sites as well as other relevant primary sources.
Available to book now for excursions taking place from January 2021.
Sessions for home-schooled students
Special sessions are reserved for home-schooled students in 2021:
Tuesday 2 March 2021
- 9:30am – Cooking up the Past (Stage 1)
- 10.30am – Convict Work (Stage 2)
- 11.30am – First Contacts (Stage 2)
- 1pm - A New Home: Female Migrants (Stage 3)
- 2pm Solve it with Sources (Stage 3 and 4)
Wednesday 9 June 2021
- 9:30am – Solve it with Sources (Stage 3 and 4)
- 10.30am – Cooking up the Past (Stage 1)
- 11.30am – Convict Work (Stage 2)
- 1pm - First Contacts (Stage 2)
- 2 pm A New Home: Female Migrants (Stage 3)
September 9 2021
- 9:30am – First Contacts (Stage 2)
- 10:30 am - A New Home: Female Migrants (Stage 3)
- 11:30 am Solve it with Sources (Stage 3 and 4)
- 1pm – Cooking up the Past (Stage 1)
- 2pm – Convict Work (Stage 2)
Tuesday 30 November 2021
- 9:30 AM - A New Home: Female Migrants (Stage 3)
- 10:30 AM - Solve it with Sources (Stage 3 and 4)
- 11:30am – Cooking up the Past (Stage 1)
- 1pm – Convict Work (Stage 2)
- 2pm – First Contacts (Stage 2)
Cost: $10 per student per session
Booking links coming soon
Did you miss these live event virtual excursions? Watch them again!
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Make your own Convict Love Token On Demand Lesson
Duration: 17:06
Make your own Convict Love Token On Demand Lesson
Watch this video to learn about some of the convicts at the Hyde Parks Barracks and more particularly some of the convict love tokens in the Sydney Living Museums collection. Hear from a curator, Mel Flyte, about some of their stories then the Learning Team will explain a creative arts activity where you can make a convict love token for yourself.
Duration: 17:06
Go back to the past at Vaucluse House

Originally a live-streamed event, you still have the opportunity to take your Stage 1 class on a virtual journey back to the past at Vaucluse House to learn about the daily lives of the Wentworth family and their many servants, and discover how household technologies have changed over time.
Bookings
To book a Virtual Excursion program, please contact SLM Bookings at +61 2 8239 2211 or email bookings@slm.com.au
Contact us
The Learning Team
Sydney Living Museums
The Mint, 10 Macquarie Street
Sydney NSW 2000
E learningteam@slm.com.au