Black history month

sean7272 · **Black history month** 12-23-2007, 01:23 AM

Does anyone have a project that they would like to share for Black history? Thanks so much..

Maureen

Rancher · 05:35 PM

I like to introduce my class to "Addy," the American Girls books. If you can find someone with the doll it would be a great visual.

I also tell them about Ruby Bridges. There's also a video that goes with it. At the end we write letters to the Ruby Bridges Foundation.

jhteach · **Living History Museum** 12-23-2007, 10:58 AM

A colleague at my school (4th grade) each year has her classes present the Famous African American Living History Museum. Each student selects a person to research. They write a report on the person's life and accomplishments along with a poster. Then they have a celebration in which they invite parents and some of the classes in the intermediate grades to the media center where the students dress up as the person and give a monologue about themselves. For example, if the person is jackie Robinson, the student will be dressed up in baseball uniform and may have a bat as a prop. They have a short speech that they have memorized taht begins with, Hi, I'm Jackie Robinson, and I'm a famous African American. Then they continue to provide interesting facts and accomplishments about "themselves". They end their speech by restating the first sentence of their monologue. The media center is decorated with all of the posters and reports the students made. I hope I explained this well. It really is an amazing presentation that I look foward to every year.

NJ Teacher · **Book** 12-23-2007, 12:57 PM

Faith Ringgold wrote and illustrated a wonderful picture book called Dinner at Aunt Connie's House". The book has portraits of famous black Americans that come to life in the story, if I remember correctly. I have had kids research those people (and others), and do the portraits in her style along with their facts.

Jump4Joy · **Great Project for any month!** 12-23-2007, 06:27 PM

My students have done CD covers on a famous African American. The purpose is to promote a new CD so they have to design the cover, create the insert, some even design a CD label to stick on an old CD, and they do song titles that relate to the person's life. I have never had more success with any projects compared to this one. The students have to be guided and shown a great example otherwise, you'll be disappointed in what they create. I did a sample on Virginia Hamilton since she was the author they were currently reading (House of Dies Drear) so they were excited to learn so much about her through my CD creation. We add an extra exciting component by inviting other classes to our CD display and to meet the famous people. It's time consuming but more worth it than just another dumb report!! I think there's a format for this type of project in a Scholastic Teacher Resource book but I don't recall which one.

pg · **Do you know about the Children's March?** 12-23-2007, 07:01 PM

We have so little time at my school and this is such an big thing... I'm so glad that I'm teaching language arts this year (instead of math) and can do more with this and my fourth graders.

Teaching Tolerance is a great organization to turn to for help with topics such as this. If you want a good (free) video, check out this page about the Children's March from the Teaching Tolerance website:

http://www.tolerance.org/teach/resou...rens_march.jsp

It's a great video! Some of the material is a bit rough, so you would want to preview it ~ but it is so inspiring to me, I tear up every time I see it!

To sum it up, the message is that much needed to be done to make the world a better place and everyone was welcome to take part in this. That message is still true today ~ which is the reason that this is a MUST SEE!

For those of you with age appropriate students, I hope you give this some thought. For the rest of you, please check it out for yourselves and pass it along to your colleagues with older students.

This can be a life changing moment!

Jamaica · 12-23-2007, 08:04 PM

Black History Website
http://www.pocanticohills.org/bhm/bhm.htm

tbell0407 · **Biography Calendar** 12-28-2007, 08:27 AM

I assign 28 different African-Americans to my students. I choose lesser know inventors, musicians, artists, sports figures, and explorers. Each student writes a one paragraph biography on their person. I do an internet search for pictures of each person. I began on February 1st with Carter G. Woodson since he started Black History Month. Everyday in February one student teaches the class about their person and then we add it to our larger calendar in the hall way. It has been a great way for the entire school to learn about important figures other than Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman.