Close Looking at Collection Items

Close looking is a foundational skill in historical inquiry. When students take time to carefully observe and analyze primary sources, they learn to slow down, notice details, and ask meaningful questions before jumping to conclusions. Close looking encourages students to move beyond surface impressions and begin thinking like historians. They consider context, look for evidence, and recognize that every source reflects a particular perspective and moment in time. 

Using close-looking worksheets helps structure this process. By guiding students to describe what they see, identify clues, and construct questions based on wonders, students build essential historical thinking skills like observation, sourcing, inference, and interpretation. Over time, close looking strengthens students’ ability to engage critically with historical collections, make evidence-based claims, and understand history as something that is constructed from careful analysis rather than simply received as fact.

Vermont History Day Resources

Classroom Resources

These classroom resources are designed to support educators in bringing Vermont history into daily instruction in meaningful, manageable ways. Organized by elementary and middle/high school, each collection offers developmentally appropriate activities, C3/proficiency aligned lesson plans, and extended units of study. There is emphasis on building essential inquiry and historical thinking skills. 

All resources are classroom-ready and designed with teachers’ workflows in mind. Lessons and units are structured for easy use and adaptation, with many materials formatted for direct use in Google Classroom. Whether you are looking for a single activity, a short inquiry lesson, or a multi-day unit, these resources connect students to Vermont’s people, places, and stories.