Providing hands-on experiences for teacher candidates is just as critical as facilitating opportunities for children in an elementary classroom to engage in interaction with reproductions about historical events and the past. Bringing museum trunks from the Kansas Museum of History into the pre-service classroom allows teacher candidates to construct and augment knowledge about history topics while also promoting effective and best practices for future generations of students. While not a replacement for field trips, in an era of scarce funds and time allotted for field trips, historical trunks can provide just the "hook" to inspire future teachers to use hands-on learning during social studies instruction. Finally, through written reflections by teacher candidates about experiences with the trunks allows a "window" through which to view the impact of the trunks.