History Archives - Look! We're Learning!

History Maker Matches! Black History Figure Puzzles

January 30, 2020 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Black History Month only comes around once a year, but we like to learn about it all year long!

With all of the important accomplishments African-Americans have made to U.S. history, it’s hard to fit it all into one month.

So we don’t even try.

Instead, we talk about notable African-Americans as often as possible. And there are new people to learn about all the time!

If you’re ready to introduce your students to African-Americans who’ve made history, these black history figure puzzles are a perfect way to get started!

These history puzzles are so fun for elementary students who are getting to know about the important achievements of black Americans!

Read on to see how to get your set. And, for more ways to teach students about black history, don’t miss our We Got Jazz Thematic Unit!

History Maker Matches! Black History Figure Puzzles

To use these black history figure puzzles, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Printer (with ink)
Printer Paper
Laminator (recommended for durability)
Scissors

This product includes:

31 color black history figure two-piece puzzles
31 line art black history figure two-piece puzzles

All you have to do is cut each puzzle apart and you’re good to go!

The left puzzle piece gives each person’s name.

While the right puzzle piece has a picture and brief description of how the person impacted American history.

As students learn about each person, they can test their knowledge by completing the puzzles.

Need to save on ink? Use the line art version instead!

The line art puzzles look great on colorful Astrobright paper!

Scroll down to get your copy of these black history puzzles!

Don’t miss these other ideas for teaching black history!

And see more history learning ideas on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

To get your copy of History Maker Matches! Black History Puzzles, click the image or the link below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> History Maker Matches! – Teachers Pay Teachers <<<

Living Color History! Black History Figure Coloring Pages

January 23, 2020 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Black history is one of the reasons I taught my children at home for the early grades.

Black History Month is wonderful, but I wanted my children to learn about the accomplishments of African-Americans all year round.

When we homeschooled, we learned about so many fascinating people right from the start.

Since I’m passionate about the topic, I still like to share black history resources for educators who observe Black History Month. And that’s why these black history figure coloring pages are so helpful for early grade education!

These are a fun and simple way to introduce students to African-Americans they may not have learned about.

And they’re a great springboard for further research!

Read on to see how to get your set. And, don’t miss our Ruby Bridges mini history lesson too!

Living Color History! Black History Figure Coloring Pages

To use this set of black history figure coloring pages, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

These coloring sheets feature realistic depictions of each person.

Plus, a blurb about what they accomplished or what they do.

These are wonderful for art extension if you’ve been learning about any of these figures with your class.

And, if you’d like to broaden your black history knowledge, these figures are a great place to start!

You can even challenge students to find out an interesting fact or two about the person on their sheet. Let them share what they learned the next day in class!

Scroll down to get your copy of these black history coloring pages!

Take a look at these other black history learning activities!

See more ways to teach history on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

To get your copy of Living Color History! Black History Figure Coloring Pages, click the image or the link below to visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Black History Figure Coloring Pages – Teachers Pay Teachers <<<

Ruby Goes to School! Mini Ruby Bridges History Lesson for Kids

January 20, 2020 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Ruby Bridges has always been an interesting history figure to me.

She was such a young girl when she made history and she managed to handle it with grace and class.

Naturally, I wanted my children to learn about Ruby Bridges but I also like to share her story with my students. And that’s why this mini Ruby Bridges history lesson is one I’m excited to share with all of you!

This is a fantastic history activity for early elementary grades!

It’s a great fit for Black History Month, but you could really use it any time of the year, because it’s also American history. And it’s so easy for early grade students to relate to her experience as well.

Read on to see how to pick up your copy! And, for more about Ruby Bridges, don’t miss our Ruby Bridges unit study!

Ruby Goes to School! Mini Ruby Bridges History Lesson for Kids

To use this mini Ruby Bridges history lesson for kids, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

This mini black history lesson includes the following:

A two-page Ruby Bridges biography
A page of Fill-In-the-Blank review questions
A Ruby Bridges word unscramble activity
And a Ruby Bridges word search!

An answer key is also included!

Share the biography with students during class and let them work on the activities as an in-class assignment or as homework.

Or laminate the pages and reuse the full activity at literacy centers!

Scroll down to get your copy of this mini Ruby Bridges History Lesson!

Don’t miss these other black history learning ideas for students!

And be sure to follow my Living History for Kids board on Pinterest!

To get your copy of this Ruby Goes to School! Mini Ruby Bridges History Lesson, click the image or the link below to grab it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Ruby Bridges History Lesson – Teachers Pay Teachers <<<

Lady Day Learning! Billie Holiday History Lesson for Kids

January 13, 2020 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

We’ve always been passionate about black history in our family. In fact, most of American music history includes accomplishments by amazing black musicians and artists.

Which is why we try to teach our kids about black jazz musicians from an early age.

And there’s no way to talk about early American jazz without discussing Billie Holiday. She was a true pioneer of songwriting, performing, and vocal styling.

So I thought this mini Billie Holiday history lesson would be a great resource to share for your black history lessons too!

This is an excellent resource for Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Jazz History Month, and more! Plus, it’s a short lesson with simple activities, so you can use it without needing time to prep it in advance.

Read on to get your copy! And, for more about the work of black musicians, don’t miss our We Got Jazz! Black History Thematic Unit!

Lady Day Learning! Mini Billie Holiday History Lesson for Kids

To use this mini Billie Holiday history lesson, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

This mini black history lesson includes the following:

A two-page Billie Holiday biography
A fill in the blank review activity
A one-page Billie Holiday word search
A one-page Billie Holiday word unscramble activity
And an answer key!

This is a wonderful quick history lesson for social studies!

Read the biography with your students and then let them test their recall with the review questions!

You can even use the word unscramble and word search activities as homework assignments!

Scroll down to get this mini Billie Holiday history lesson!

Check out these other black history learning ideas!

And be sure to follow my Living History for Kids board on Pinterest too!

To get your copy of Lady Day Learning! Mini Billie Holiday History Lesson for Kids, click the image or the link below to grab it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Billie Holiday History Lesson – Teachers Pay Teachers <<<

20 Fascinating Books about Black Inventors and Scientists

January 24, 2019 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

My youngest son is obsessed with making things. He’s built a working fishing pole, a wobble racer, and even a 3-D paper basketball playset, complete with players who actually shoot the ball into the hoop.

We’ve always encouraged our kids to learn about their history, so I thought it would be cool for him to read some books about black inventors and scientists. That way, he learns about history and he finds out that other people like him have had big ideas that they turned into real things that helped society.

Talk about a self-esteem boost!

I wanted to share these storybooks with all of you because we’ve enjoyed reading them. (Some are even in our home library.) But they’d also make excellent choices for a STEM unit or a Black History Month lesson. In our family, we like to read about them all year.

Read on to see these inspiring black inventor books for kids. And for more black history lessons, don’t miss our We Got Jazz unit study! It’s packed with over 120 pages of black history for elementary grades!

20 Fascinating Books about Black Inventors and Scientists

This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.

1. Garrett Morgan: Historically by Maria Mas

2. What Color Is My World? The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

3. Katharine Johnson (You Should Meet) by Thea Feldman

4. Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super Soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton

5. What Are You Figuring Now? A Story about Benjamin Banneker by Jeri Ferris

6. Mae Among the Stars by Roda Ahmed

7. National Geographic Readers: George Washington Carver by Kitson Jazynka

8. Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker by Kathyrn Lasky

9. What If There Were No Black Folks? A Story About African-American Inventors and Pioneers by Toni Abasi Hill

10. Hidden Figures: The True Story of Four Black Women and the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

11. The Man Who Invented the Lawn Mower: And Other Inspirational Black American Inventors and Their Inventions by Christopher Davis, Jr

12. All Aboard! Elijah McCoy’s Steam Engine by Monica Kulling

13. The Doctor With an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath by Julia Finley Mosca

14. Lewis Latimer: Black Americans of Achievement by Winifred Latimer Norman

15. Great Black Heroes: Five Brilliant Scientists by Lynda Jones

16. The Woman Who Invented Weaving by Christopher Davis, Jr

17. Gary and the Great Inventors: It’s Laundry Day! by Akura Marshall

18. Black Pioneers of Science and Invention by Louis Haber

19. Look What Brown Can Do! by T. Marie Harris

20. Have You Thanked an Inventor Today? by Patrice McLaurin

Did you like this list of books about black inventors and scientists? Check out these other history learning ideas!

See even more activities on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

How to Teach History with a Timeline

November 26, 2018 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

If you’re teaching your kids at home, you’ve probably discovered that there are several ways to learn how to teach history.

You could do it by starting with the history of the country in which you live and then proceeding out to the rest of the world. Many curriculum companies use this approach.

You could start with modern history and then work your way back to the ancients.

You could follow your child’s interests and cover historical periods according to what they want to learn at the moment.

Or you could teach history chronologically – in order of how it occurred.

Personally, I love the chronological approach. But, no matter which historical teaching method you use, history always makes more sense with a timeline.

What is a history timeline? Why should you learn how to teach history with a timeline? Read on to see why we love using timelines in our history lessons with our kids!

And for more history learning fun, don’t miss our African Kingdoms unit study. It’s a semester-long thematic unit all about the royal kingdoms of ancient Africa!

Disclosure: I am a BookShark brand ambassador and am receiving free curriculum as part of my role.

Images c/o: javarman & Andy-pix / depositphotos

How to Teach History with a Timeline

So – what’s a history timeline? It’s exactly what it sounds like: a line for recording historical events in the order in which they happened.

For example, if you’re studying Ancient Egypt, you might start with a discussion of how the Old Kingdom emerged as a major civilization. You’d begin with that topic and mark the appearance of the first recorded Egyptian king on your timeline, along with the years of his reign.

As you learn about subsequent kings, you’d add them to your timeline during the following years.

However – and this is what makes history timelines so great – you’re not bound to that one topic. You can switch and learn about other civilizations that existed concurrently with Ancient Egypt, such as the Sumerian civilization and the Indus Valley civilization.

You’d record those rulers and their reigns in the years in which they occurred as well. As a result, when your kids look at a specific period in human history, say, 3500 – 3000 B.C.E., they’d be able to see which kingdoms were in existence, which were on the decline, and which were just emerging.

This is incredible for understanding not just which civilizations existed and when, but how they came about and what contributed to their development. It adds so much context to what’s happened among humans over the past centuries.

How to Teach History with BookShark

With BookShark, all of the historical events are covered using the timeline approach. And, if you’re new to learning how to teach history in this way, the prepared lesson plans in the curriculum make it simple.

The lesson plan for each week’s history lesson explains when you will use the timeline book and figures. As you get to those activities, you simply help your child cut out the correct figure and place it in the timeline book at the year specified.

When you move through the program, you’ll gradually fill in your timeline with other important figures you discuss with the kids.

But BookShark doesn’t just include timelines for history. The program incorporates several excellent history resources to explain exactly what was happening and who was involved.

Kids can find out what life was like in those historical periods, make fun crafts and activities, and learn how these ancient civilizations have influenced our modern lives.

So, when they go back and look at the timeline, they remember when events occurred and, more importantly, why these events were significant.

For more on the BookShark approach to how to teach history, check out the website to see which periods are covered in each grade level.

How do you teach history in your homeschool? Have you found a specific way how to teach history that works best with your kids? Share your experiences in the comments!

Don’t miss these other history learning ideas!

See more ways to bring history to life on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

Introduction to Africa Lesson Plan for Kids

February 8, 2018 by Selena Robinson 6 Comments

We’ve been studying African kingdoms of the past with the kids and we’re thrilled to share what we learned with you! It’s fascinating (and tragic) to me that Africa is the largest of all the inhabited continents and yet it is largely overlooked in history programs for kids.

In fact, I use the “What Your ____th Grader Needs to Know” series with our children and there is no mention of African history outside of Egypt until fourth grade. This means that kids are first introduced to Sub-Saharan African history with a discussion of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

I feel that initially presenting Africa in the light of slavery tends to bias children to the beauty and historical significance of African rulers and people. We’ve decided not to cover the subject in that way with our children and we’ve found out some incredible things so far.

For starters, Africa is so much more than poverty, oppression, and slavery. In fact, these things were fairly uncommon until colonialism started. So before we got into our lesson about African Kingdoms with the kids, we decided to learn more about the African continent – as it is today.

Take a look at this Introduction to Africa lesson plan you can share with your kids too! And if you want to learn even more about Africa with your children, don’t miss our African Kingdoms printable unit study!

Introduction to Africa Lesson Plan for Kids

Let’s begin by tackling some common misconceptions about Africa.

The original name of Africa is not “Africa”!

First, did you know that Africa was not originally called Africa? That name was based on the name “Afri“, which was a Latin name given to the inhabitants of Carthage by the Romans in the second century B.C.E.

In fact, the Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio was renamed Scipio Africanus after his victory against Hannibal at Carthage at the end of the century, because the name “Africa” was only used to denote the area surrounding the indigenous people who lived in and around Carthage at the time.

Somehow over the centuries, the name Africa was expanded to refer to the entire continent, but that was not the name that the inhabitants of Africa used. There is some disagreement about what the original name for Africa was, but some say that the original name was “Al-kebulan“, which is an Arabic name meaning “Land of the Blacks”.

How big is Africa?

After finding out that the name of Africa wasn’t even originally Africa, we had to re-examine our entire view of the area. We decided to sift through popular images of Africa and compare them to the reality of life on the largest continent on Earth.

The free resource “Exploring Africa” by Michigan State University is an excellent introduction to African culture, history, and geography. We started with the beginning exercises about the size of Africa and the common portrayals of Africa in popular culture.

We also found an incredible graphic showing the enormous size of the African continent:

Image credit: Boston University

Africa is a Culturally Rich, Civilized Continent

What kind of landscape comes to mind when you hear the name “Africa”? Do you think of people who live in huts? Do you picture extreme poverty and dirty surroundings? Those are the images commonly used in the media. And Africa does have poor people and slums. (Like literally every other continent, except Antarctica.)

I live in the U.S. and if I wanted to show the U.S. as a country of poor, impoverished people, I’d have no trouble finding photographs to support that story. We see homeless people in our area on a regular basis. So it’s unfair to paint this as a situation that’s unique to the African continent.

African countries have huge cities, beautiful buildings, and incredibly rich historical sites.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Cape Town, South Africa

Kampala, Uganda

Marrakesh, Morocco

Nairobi, Kenya

Windhoek, Namibia

The People of Africa

The Exploring Africa lesson plan makes an excellent point that I had not previously realized. Most of the images of Africa in modern culture are either of animals, nature, or buildings. The people of Africa are not widely highlighted, unless they are shown looking malnourished or unhappy.

When I thought back to my childhood, I realized that this was definitely true when I was growing up. Of course, it’s important to publicize the extreme poverty that ravages much of Africa, but those images are not representative of life for all Africans. Seeing those pictures over and over can make us feel that life in Africa is miserable for everyone, which is not true.

Here are some of the images of Africans we shared with our kids:

Young Men in Ethiopia

Image c/o: Katie Hunt

Mother and Children in Angola

Young Maasai Women

Image c/o: DFID – UK Department for International Development

Ugandan couple

Best Friends

The Natural Wonders of Africa

We also discussed the incredible diversity of geography on the African continent. Utah State University hosts a very thorough resource list of Africa lesson plans and we explored one to learn about the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa.

Here are a few of these natural wonders:

Victoria Falls

Table Mountain

Image c/o: Julien Carnot

The Serengeti Plains

Image c/o: Harvey Barrison

Books and Resources about Africa

Here are some of the resources we used for this lesson. They’re definitely worth a look. (Affiliate links are listed below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

University of North Carolina: How Do We Represent Africa? – A free PDF file with color pictures of life and nature scenes from Africa. Great for broadening common views of Africa to include people of all kinds.
Afrobets: First Book About Africa by Veronica Freeman Ellis
Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions by Margaret Musgrove

Learn even more about Africa with these learning activities!

Ready to dive into the royal history of Africa? Don’t miss our African Kingdoms unit study! It’s packed with unit activities to help elementary kids learn about the rich and regal history of African kingdoms!

>>> African Kingdoms Elementary Unit Study <<<

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This post is part of the Autumn 2013 Hopscotch from the women of iHomeschool Network! Click below to see the Hopscotch posts from all of our fellow bloggers!

African Kingdoms! A Printable African History Unit Study for Kids

January 25, 2018 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

As we started studying history in our homeschool, I was disheartened to see how little information was available about Africa for elementary-aged children.

One of the programs we tried did not mention African kingdoms at all until fourth grade. Which meant that the first mention my children would get of African people at all would be in relation to slavery.

That was unacceptable to me.

So we set out on a multi-day African history unit study to discover some of the royal empires of Africa that existed long before the United States and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade ever existed. And, along the way, we learned so much that I wanted to share it with others.

Which is how this African Kingdoms printable unit study was born!

This unit, which is geared toward elementary students, is a great way to get to know some of the kingdoms and legendary rulers that reigned in Africa!

Read on to see how to pick up a copy for your kids! And be sure to check out our list of must-read black history books too!

African Kingdoms! – Printable African History Unit Study

This printable African history unit study is packed with over 60 pages of learning activities about seven African empires, including:

Egypt
Nubia
Ghana & Mali
Great Zimbabwe
Songhay
Asante
And the Zulu Empire

Each section of the unit includes an easy-to-read history of each empire. Kids will learn about how each empire began and how it grew.

In addition, students will learn about some of the important figures of each empire and their accomplishments.

At the end of each section is a review activity that gives kids a chance to recall what they’ve learned. There’s also a hands-on activity for each empire to bring learning to life!

At the end, kids can practice locating each empire on a map of Africa to discover where each was located.

This is a great way to add context to the trade practices of each empire, as well as important battles. A full answer key is also included!

Scroll down to get your copy of African Kingdoms! Printable African History Unit Study!

Check out these other history learning ideas for kids!

See more ways to learn about history on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

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To get your copy of African Kingdoms! Printable African History Unit Study, click the image or the link below to visit our Store!

>>> African Kingdoms – Printable African History Unit Study <<<

We Got Jazz! – A Jazz Black History Unit Study

January 22, 2018 by Selena Robinson 7 Comments

As the kids and I have been studying black history, we’ve found so many incredible stories of great jazz musicians. I knew about all of these music pioneers, but learning about their lives and experiences has been so enlightening and it’s been a wonderful lesson for our children.

So I thought it would be nice to put what we’ve learned together into a printable black history unit study that’s all about jazz, bebop, and scat! We are very proud to announce the release of We Got Jazz! – Exploring the Pioneers of Scat, Bebop, and Swing! We Got Jazz! is a jazz unit study packed with jazz history, activities, and games for kids in grades K through fourth!

Read on to see how to get your copy! And, if you’re looking for more black history lessons for kids, don’t miss our African Kingdoms unit study for elementary students!

We Got Jazz! Black History Unit Study

My husband and I have always enjoyed the sounds of jazz and, while we knew about all of these famous musicians, we didn’t know much about how they got started making music or the challenges they faced during their careers.

As we started exploring these figures with the kids, we found out so many interesting things! And that’s what this black history unit study is designed to do for your family!

We Got Jazz! features five biography units of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington!

In addition, there are additional activities for each artist, including listening activities, matching games, timelines, and an identification activity for younger learners!

Each artist has a five-page biography that’s written in kid-friendly language with pictures!

Each biography is followed by a question and answer review you can have the kids complete.

Kids can also complete copywork activities featuring quotes from the artists themselves.

There’s also a listening activity for each artist, with a link to one of their famous works, that encourages kids to interpret the music for themselves.

The unit study also contains additional activities, including timelines for each artist…

…and a hit record matching game to play at the end!

Plus, a full answer key!

Altogether, We Got Jazz! is packed with more than 130 pages of jazz unit studies for kids!

Scroll down to get your copy of our We Got Jazz! black history unit study!

Check out more black history learning activities below!

Get more ideas for teaching history on our Living History Pinterest board!

Score exclusive learning printables when you sign up for our email newsletter!

To pick up your copy of We Got Jazz! – Exploring the Pioneers of Scat, Bebop, and Swing and learn more about how to use the jazz history facts workbook in your homeschool, click the image or the link below!

>>> We Got Jazz: Exploring the Pioneers of Scat, Bebop, and Swing <<<

Harlem Renaissance Unit Study

January 16, 2018 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

We’ve always been passionate about teaching our kids black history. There are so many wonderful stories, people, and events to share. And one of our very favorite periods to discuss is the Harlem Renaissance.

So this year, we wanted to develop a Harlem Renaissance unit study we could cover with the kids to help them learn even more about the people, movements, and ideas that sprang up in Harlem during the 1920s. I hope you and your kids love the books and activities about the Harlem Renaissance below too!

Don’t forget to check out our printable jazz unit study “We Got Jazz” to learn about the pioneers of jazz and bebop!

Harlem Renaissance Unit Study

This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy for details.

Harlem Renaissance Notebooking Pages

I wanted to have some printables that the kids could use to write down what they learn about the Harlem Renaissance, so I created these Jazz Journaling notebooking pages! Click the image or the link below to download yours free!

>>> Jazz Journaling Printable Notebooking Pages <<<

What Was the Harlem Renaissance?

Watch the video below to get an overview of the Harlem Renaissance and then let your kids answer the following questions.

1. What was the Harlem Renaissance? (Answer: A cultural and intellectual movement that occurred in Harlem, New York during the 1920s)

2. How did Harlem come to be a major African-American cultural center? (Answer: During the Great Migration, many African-Americans moved up north and settled in Harlem.)

3. What branches of thought and entertainment were included in the Harlem Renaissance? (Answer: Music, poetry, writing, art, and philosophy)

4. How did African-American fashion change during the Harlem Renaissance? (Answer: Men started to wear zoot suits, women wore low-slung dresses. Both men and women wore hats. Leopard-print became a popular trend, because of its connection to ancient African culture.)

5. How did the Harlem Renaissance affect the musical culture of the United States? (Answer: African-American art and music became popular with white audiences. White musicians began incorporating African-American musical rhythms and styles into their music.)

6. How did the Harlem Renaissance change the perception of African-Americans in the United States? (Answer: Prior to the 1920s, black people were often thought of as uneducated farmers. During the Renaissance, people came to see that black people were sophisticated, intelligent, and accomplished.)

Among the prominent writers of the movement was Langston Hughes (one of my personal writing heroes). This video is a good introduction to his work.

Books About the Harlem Renaissance:

Share these books about the Harlem Renaissance to bring this historical period to life!

1. The Harlem Renaissance: An Interactive History Adventure

2. The Great Migration: An American Story

3. Louis Armstrong: Jazz Legend

4. The Harlem Renaissance (We The People)

5. Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of The Harlem Renaissance

6. Black Stars of the Harlem Renaissance

7. Sugar Hill: Harlem’s Historic Neighborhood

8. Schomburg: The Man Who Built A Library

9. Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance

10. Take A Picture of Me, James VanDerZee!

11. Coming Home: From the Life of Langston Hughes

12. Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story

13. Harlem’s Little Blackbird: The Story of Florence Mills

14. One Last Word: Wisdom From the Harlem Renaissance

15. Harlem Renaissance Party

16. A Song for Harlem (Scraps of Time)

17. W.E.B. DuBois (Great African-Americans)

18. Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra

19. Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes

20. The Harlem Renaissance: Profiles in Creativity

Be sure to let the kids dress up in period clothing to match the style of the Harlem Renaissance! We hit up a local thrift store to find an outfit for our oldest daughter.

Many of the African-American jazz musicians who became famous during the 20th century either got their start during the Renaissance or grew up during that time and developed styles based on the modern jazz that came out of the movement.

Check out our unit study We Got Jazz for over 130 pages of activities about some of these artists!

Stop by to check out these other learning ideas!

And see more ideas for teaching history at home on my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

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Hands-On Ancient History with Project Passport!

March 7, 2017 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Personally, I love history, even ancient history. Trying to make those subjects interesting to an eight-year-old, though, poses its own set of challenges. It can be tough to help kids to “see” the people and events so that they can understand what happened and why it has meaning for our modern world.

And that’s why I was so excited to have a chance to review the Project Passport unit study series from Home School in the Woods! Each unit focuses on a specific time period in ancient history and is chock-full with hands-on ancient history activities, lessons, and readings that make history exciting for kids!

Take a look at this fabulous history curriculum in our review! Plus, one reader will win all four of the current Project Passport History Unit Studies CDs! Read on to get the details and see how you can score these incredible products for yourself!

Disclosure: I received this product in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review. (Affiliate links provided here for convenience. For more, see our Disclosure Policy.)

Preparing a Project Passport Hands-On History Unit Study

We had planned to cover ancient history with Pooh this year, so the unit studies from Home School in the Woods was a great fit! The newest unit study is Project Passport: Ancient Greece and it is AH. MAZING.

Here’s a quick look at just some of the resources in this fabulous unit. The CD contains all of the available downloads, printables, and instructions you’ll need to assemble the unit study. By the way, Project Passport unit studies are also available as digital downloads, with all of the same goodies.

Now here’s a look at how we got started putting our unit together!

Home School in the Woods has done a LOT of the work on this unit for you, so take advantage of every single download, instruction sheet, and PDF in the program. We printed the teacher’s guides, key’s and instructions for one binder. Then we started working on the “Scrapbook of Sights” for Pooh to complete as we went along.

At the beginning of the CD (or digital download), you’ll find a comprehensive Travel Itinerary, which gives you an overview of the entire unit. This is super helpful for scheduling your lessons.

There are also a lot of travel “tips” listed at the beginning. DO NOT SKIP THIS. This is a great reference sheet as you go along, especially if you’re a need-to-know-everything-at-the-start person (like yours truly).

I want to add a couple of caveats here:

Project Passport is loaded and, I mean, loaded with printables. Invest in a reliable printer. (Here’s the one we use.)
There is a lot of information to read through to see which activities to complete with each section of the unit. I have ADD, so I had to break each section down, highlight the action steps on each lesson, and then check off each printable as I printed it. That was the only way I could keep my activities organized.

Pooh and I started off by creating our “Scrapbook of Sights” – a visual memento binder of our “trip” through Ancient Greece.

I loved this activity so much, because it gave him a chance to keep up with little reminders of everything he learned through the unit. In fact, we’re still filling it up as we continue the program!

At the first “stop”, you and your child complete several activities that will be completed along the way. Two of these include the actual “passport” (as in “Project Passport”) and your “luggage”, which will collect your travel memories.

The passport is designed to be used as you travel through all of the Project Passport unit studies, including:

Ancient Egypt
Ancient Greece (which we’re showcasing in this post)
The Middle Ages
Renaissance and Reformation
Ancient Rome (will be released in 2018)

As you finish each unit, your child gets to add a new “stamp” to his passport!

Now that we were all packed, it was time to head on our trip!

How to Use Project Passport Hands-On Ancient History Unit Studies

Whew! That was just the getting started part! See what I mean about this unit study being chock-full of activities?

Project Passport units are designed to last for six to twelve weeks of study. Really, though, I think you could stretch them out to a full school year (36 weeks), especially if you only cover history once or twice a week. These units are that comprehensive.

In our first “stop”, we talked about the origin of Ancient Greece. Pooh started adding to his “Snapshots in History” pages in the scrapbook.

We cut out character/place cards, colored them, and glued them in the scrapbook. At each “stop”, you collect a few of these.

We also began working on our maps of the Aegean Civilizations and the Ancient Greek World.

Coming along! (This is another activity that you add to as you go through the unit.)

A really cute part of Project Passport is receiving postcards from historical figures. Each postcard is written as if it came from a person in history, describing what they’re doing and where they’re at. Our first card came from Agamemnon and it briefly explained the origin of the Trojan War.

Pooh drew a ship sailing to Troy on the front of the postcard…

…and then added to it our Postcard Rack in our scrapbook.

At the beginning of each stop, you can print a guide text that serves as the basis for the unit. It’s really the “textbook” part of the unit. It’s good to read through this with the kids before you try the activities. Otherwise, they won’t have any context for what they’re learning.

A quick note here: Project Passport unit studies are not secular. The guide texts mention the Bible, Biblical characters, and God. We’re Christians, but we typically use secular homeschooling curriculum, and I didn’t expect those references. But, they’re very few and far between, so you can skip them if you want. I didn’t see any overtly religious information in the activities.

Another of the activities we’ll be building on is the “Greek Weekly” newspaper. At each stop, kids can write their own news stories about what’s happening in the Greek World. (Stories can be based on what they learned from the guide text.)

Hmmm….interesting stories in the paper today! (Just kidding, he’d only written one story so far.)

In our later “stops”, we collected more character cards and colored them.

And then pasted them in our Scrapbook, which was getting pretty full by this point. 🙂

And we got another postcard for our scrapbook too!

Project Passport also has a mega lapbook you can complete along the way. And what’s really nice is that kids are working their way into it through the unit. In this stop, Pooh worked on making matchbooks that each contained information about life in Ancient Athens.

Each matchbook contained information and pictures about an aspect of the city. We added the base page to our scrapbook and started assembling.

This activity alone could last a week. I mean, you’re studying about the cultural, political, social, and economic features of the city of Athens in ONE activity.

And we’re finished! (With that activity, that is. We easily have another nine weeks of activities in the unit.)

What you’ve seen in this review is just a few of the activities in three “stops” on the Project Passport: Ancient Greece unit study. Know how many stops there are altogether? 25. Now that’s a serious hands-on ancient history homeschool curriculum!

Stop by and pick up a Project Passport unit study yourself! If you want to go in chronological order, start with Ancient Egypt, then move on to Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and Reformation. It will be an awesome history education for your kids!

Now: for the great giveaway news! One winner will receive all four Project Passport CDs – FREE! (If the winner lives outside the U.S., he or she will receive digital downloads instead of CDs.) Enter for your chance to win using the Giveaway Tools widget below!

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Must-Read Black History Books for Kids

January 10, 2017 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

In our family, black history is history. We teach it along with every other topic. We’ve covered African history, civil rights, and even jazz history with our children over the years. But we’ve also enjoyed sharing African-American storybooks that help them “see” themselves in stories.

As part of learning about history, we’ve read some wonderful black history books for kids over the years. Today I’m sharing some of the selections that I consider “must-read” books! If I missed any of your favorites, feel free to share your suggestions in the comments!

Image c/o: Brainsil / depositphotos

Must-Read Black History Books for Kids

(Affiliate links provided here for convenience. For more, see our Disclosure Policy.)

1. 100 African-Americans Who Shaped American History by Chrisanne Beckner (If you only get one, make it this one.)

2. Rosa by Nikki Giovanni

3. When the Beat was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip-Hop by Laban Carrick Hill

4. My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth by Ann Turner

5. Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America

6. Fly High: The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden

7. Firebird by Misty Copeland

8. Salt in His Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream by Deloris Jordan

9. Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad

10. A Weed is a Flower: The Life of George Washington Carver by Aliki

11. Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold

12. Black Cowboys by Ryan P. Randolph

13. Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington by Jabari Asim

14. The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles (Check out our Ruby Bridges unit study!)

15. Alvin Ailey by Andrea Davis Pinkney

16. Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

17. 28 Days: Moments in Black History That Changed the World by Charles R. Smith, Jr.

18. Fort Mose: And the Story of the Man Who Built the First Free Black Settlement in Colonial America by Glennette Tiley Turner

19. Molly, By Golly!: The Legend of Molly Williams, America’s First Female Firefighter

20. Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson (Don’t miss our Nelson Mandela unit!)

21. Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman by Kathleen Krull

22. Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Davis Pinkney

23. Tommy Traveler in the World of Black History by Tom Feelings (This is a tough one to find, but it is so worth it.)

24. The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch by Chris Barton

25. What Color is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

26. Mister and Lady Day: Billie Holiday and the Dog Who Loved Her by Amy Novesky

27. Jump Back, Paul: The Life and Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Sally Derby

28. Malcolm Little: The Boy Who Grew Up to Become Malcolm X by Ilyasah Shabazz

29. Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound by Andrea Davis Pinkney

30. Stealing Home: The Story of Jackie Robinson by Barry Denenberg

31. When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan

32. Nothing But Trouble: The Story of Althea Gibson by Sue Stauffacher

33. Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford

34. We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson

Check out these other black history posts!

Plus, grab our ebook “We Got Jazz” for 120 pages of unit studies and activities about jazz greats, including Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and more!

Follow my Living History for Kids board on Pinterest for more history teaching ideas!

This post is part of the “Must-Read Books” linkup from iHomeschool Network! Stop by to read more awesome book lists from my fellow bloggers!

Studying the Harlem Renaissance with Kendall Hunt Publishing

August 25, 2016 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

My sixth grader has been showing more of an interest in black history lately, which is awesome because I love teaching it! We’re creeping up on the ’20s again, so I thought we’d go back and look at the 1920s during this homeschool year.

The ’20s were pretty great for black history. There were some horrible things happening, due to increased racial tension, but the Harlem Renaissance also took place that decade and that was a milestone era for African-American art.

So I was excited to try the book The 1920s in America: A Decade of Tensions from Kendall Hunt Publishing! It has units on both the racial tension of the 1920s and the Harlem Renaissance! Read on to see how we used this textbook to cover this fascinating period in black history!

For more black history learning ideas, don’t miss our Ruby Bridges unit study and our list of 31 African-American storybooks for kids, including several history picture books!

Disclosure: I received this product in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

Covering The Racial Tension of the 1920s with Kendall Hunt Publishing

Kendall Hunt is a curriculum company that offers textbooks and unit studies for grades PreK through 12th. There are a TON of resources to look through. Don’t believe me? Stop by and drool over the curriculum catalog. 🙂

The textbook The 1920s in America: A Decade of Tensions, which is part of the William & Mary Center for Gifted Education Social Studies program, is designed for public school education, but I found it to be an easy text to adapt to a homeschool unit.

One of the things I love about the textbook is that it contains a unit about the existing racial tension of the decade before embarking on a discussion about the Harlem Renaissance. We can only appreciate the importance of those artistic achievements if we understand what life was like for many black Americans at the time.

So we began as the unit does: with a look at the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s.

Since we live in the Deep South, we see reminders of the KKK’s influence every now and then. (In fact, they were recruiting in a local neighborhood recently.) While I don’t want to frighten my daughter, I do want her to understand the very real issues that confronted black Americans in the past and still exist today.

After we watched the video about the KKK, we talked a bit about life in the post-reconstruction South for black people. It was pretty grim. Poverty was rampant, jobs were scarce, and racism was everywhere.

As the textbook instructed, we took a look at the black nationalism movement next to discover the rationale for returning to Africa. And, of course, you can’t talk about black nationalism without discussing Marcus Garvey. After we watched a short video about Garvey, it was time to complete the point of view exercise in the textbook. (There are also two essays in the textbook: one written by a leader of the KKK and another written by a proponent of black nationalism.)

As we got a feel for the everyday life of the average black American in the 1920s, we were ready to explore the beauty of the Harlem Renaissance and why it was so important to African-American society.

Exploring the Harlem Renaissance with Kendall Hunt Publishing

We began by watching a short video about the Harlem Renaissance.

I asked my daughter to summarize why seeing the artistic accomplishments of the era would be so impressive to black Americans. Here’s what she wrote:

“The Harlem Renaissance gave the black folks a chance to make something that they would later be proud of. The black people who saw the art by other black people felt a ray of hope.”

Exactly.

To continue the unit, we read the poem I, Too by Langston Hughes, which is quoted in its entirety in the textbook.

Off-topic a bit here, but Langston Hughes is one of my very favorite writers ever in history. Ever.

After we read the poem a few times, we used the included Literature Web printout and the questions in the unit to help examine our feelings about the work.

I loved this exercise, by the way. It’s such a nice method for helping kids to think about the way a poem makes them feel and then analyze those emotions. It’s also a good introduction to recognizing symbolism, something that’s crucial to our understanding of literature.

As she filled in the Literature Web, my daughter started to find deeper meaning in the poem than she originally picked up. It’s amazing that a written work which consists of about 20 lines can say so much.

Of course, I couldn’t let a lesson about the Harlem Renaissance go by without dressing her up – just a little.

Women were extra sharp in those days. So we stopped by Goodwill and picked up a hat with feathers and a long necklace, then paired them with a dress she already had.

Fabulous!

This was a wonderful history lesson – one of my favorites ever in our homeschool. And I really appreciated how the textbook The 1920s in America: A Decade of Tensions helped me organize the lesson and structure it so that it would make the most impact on my daughter’s understanding of American history.

Want to learn more about Kendall Hunt Publishing? Follow the company on Facebook and Twitter for news about products and promotions!

Get more ideas for teaching history to your kids on my Living History board on Pinterest!

Homeschool Unit Studies: Ruby Bridges Unit Study

February 25, 2016 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

In our family, we don’t celebrate Black History Month. After all, we’re not just black in February. 🙂 Since black history is important, we talk about it year-round. But I wanted to share one of our recent homeschool unit studies with you all now, while more people are thinking about black history.

The book The Story of Ruby Bridges was on our first grade reading list for this year, so when we read the book we made it into a full Ruby Bridges Unit Study! Read on to see the resources we used and the lessons we learned!

Ruby Bridges Unit Study

We began our unit by reading this book: The Story of Ruby Bridges. After reading it, we looked up more about Ruby’s life.

The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert ColesIt’s amazing to think that this happened only about 50 years ago – long after slavery had ended. It just says something about how deeply ingrained certain ways of thinking can become.

I was really moved to see pictures of this little six-year-old girl walking through protesters into an empty school. The same people who took their children out of the school dedicated themselves to standing outside of it for weeks on end, shouting racial slurs at a child.

In fact, the president had to call in the federal marshals to keep Ruby safe from the mobs outside because the local and state police refused to help. You can see one of them in the picture above standing inside the building and smiling. Unbelievable.

We examined this excellent resource at Scholastic featuring a slideshow about segregation during the 1950s and 1960s. Since that was a generation ago, it’s one thing for kids to hear about it, but another thing entirely to see it. My kids couldn’t get over the white and “colored” water fountains.

This video is from the PBS series “The African-Americans: Many Rivers to Cross”. Seeing the footage of people screaming at Ruby really affected the kids. Honestly, it affected me too. I knew about Ruby’s story as a child, but seeing it now as a parent had a completely different effect on me.

I have to take my hat off to Ruby’s parents, because there’s no way I could send my child into an environment like that. But, as I told our kids, someone had to be first. And because Ruby went through that then, my kids didn’t have to deal with those kinds of pressures when they went to school.

I asked the kids to contrast Ruby’s first day of school with their first day of public school last year and write down the differences. Here’s what they wrote:

Six-year-old Roo: “When Ruby went to school, people were yelling at her. But when I went to school, nobody was yelling at me.”

Seven-year-old Pooh: “When Ruby was at school, people hated her. When I went to school, everyone was kind. That must have been hard, scary for her but she did it!”

A while back, Ruby was invited to the White House where she and President Obama looked at the 1964 Norman Rockwell painting she inspired. In 2011, the painting was displayed outside of the Oval Office for a time.

Ruby Bridges got the chance to reunite with one of the federal marshals who escorted her to school back in 2013. You might want to check out this article about it, but *fair warning* you might also want to have some tissues handy.

Links about Ruby Bridges:

We used these links to learn more about Ruby’s life and experience in school.

Books about Ruby Bridges:

Along with The Story of Ruby Bridges, there are some other great kids’ books about Ruby’s life.

Nubian History for Kids

August 11, 2015 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I got the chance to share a guest post over at To the Moon and Back about how we teach Nubian history for kids in our homeschool. So if you’re a history buff, read on to get a look at how we cover this subject with our children!

Today is also another edition of the Laugh and Learn linky! Check out our picks from last week’s party and read this week’s new parenting and homeschooling posts below!

Nubian History for Kids

As part of our 10 Days of African History series, we did an in-depth study of the ancient kingdom of Nubia. It’s interesting to me that there are so few children’s resources about Nubian history, but since I found lots of adult-oriented material, I just tweaked it for the kids. 🙂

To see more about how we covered Nubian history with our children, check out the guest post I wrote for The ABCs of Ancient History series at To the Moon and Back: “N is for Nubia“!

N is for Nubia – To the Moon and Back

And now it’s time for the linky!

Welcome to our 45th week of Laugh and Learn – Homeschool and Parenting Linkup!

Last week was our best linkup ever! Thanks for sharing 79 links with us.

Laugh and Learn – Homeschool and Parenting Linkup will be open by 6 am every Tuesday morning.

Each and every week all of the hosts pick one favorite post to be featured on the next week’s linkup. All of your links will be shared on five blogs.

We are also sharing the top posts on Pinterest: #LaughLearnLinkup {Featured Favorites}. It’s added exposure for your awesome content!

Your Fabulous Hosts 😉

Tina

Tina lives abroad in Latin America with her husband and four children. Currently in Mexico, Tina is active in homeschool, travel, and her Bible ministry. She blogs about all of their adventures and more at Los Gringos Locos.
Find Tina at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Selena

Selena is a writer and a homeschooling mom to four kids, including three with ADHD/SPD. Selena and her husband, Jay, are committed to teaching their children at home and loving every minute of it! You can read about the family’s homeschooling experiences at Look! We’re Learning, written by Selena!
Find Selena at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Sarah

Sarah lives in Kentucky, USA, where she and her husband homeschool three children. Sarah writes for and about, families with special needs. She hopes to provide support and encouragement to all special needs parents in the homeschool community. Visit Sarah at Dedicated Homeschooler.
Find Sarah at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Haley

Haley hopes to encourage stay at home moms. She wants to help moms learn how to make an extra income, to stretch a budget, to make crafts, and other useful information. Haley always has updates on the kids and funny things that happen. Visit Haley at Haley’s Vintage Finds & Deals.
Find Haley at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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Lindsey

Lindsey is a passionate writer eager to touch the hearts and minds of homeschoolers and parents abroad. As a devoted mother to two, happy homeschooler, and scatterbrained housewife, she’s on a mission to find love and joy in “the simple life” and invites you to join her! Visit Lindsey at Nitty Gritty Homeschooling. Find Lindsey at her blog link above, and on the following social media networks:
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The Winners for the Week of August 10th:

CARDBOARD ARC DE TRIOMPHE

DIY FARM ANIMAL GAME

MINECRAFT UNIT STUDY

DISPLAY KIDS ARTWORK

KID MADE BANANA BURRITOS

Thanks to everyone who submitted a post. Please check out the post above by clicking on the image.
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Now give us your best posts!

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How I Teach History to My Kids with ADHD

January 16, 2014 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.

Hey y’all! It’s the fourth day of our ADHD Learning series and we’re on to how we teach history for our kids with ADHD! Have you noticed that we’ve been using the words: movement, unit studies, and books a lot? Well, they’re back again today. 🙂

History Timelines

We’ve been eclectic homeschoolers for several years now, which means we take bits and pieces from several homeschooling philosophies. Strictly speaking, history timelines are generally a classical homeschooling method, because they stem from a sequential approach to learning history – that is, you learn everything in the order it happened.

I actually love the classical history approach and we’ve used it fairly often with our kids. Whenever we cover a topic or an area of the world, we proceed in order and we make a timeline. We did a timeline in our study of Nelson Mandela to help the kids understand the events in his life. We also did an African kingdom history timeline in our African History series last year. Even Roo got involved in completing it!

History Unit Studies

As with our other subjects, we try to incorporate history into our unit studies whenever possible. If the subject is a person, we look at his or her early life and career before we get into their famous accomplishments. If we’re covering an area, we try to examine the history of the region as a basis to understanding the particular events or people in it.

We’ve been covering the Living History series on the blog for the past few months and we’ve gotten to know a few famous musicians better by completing history units about their lives. We try to include a children’s book about the artist and then we create our own biography and activity pack for the kids to complete. If you’d like to see an example of our history unit studies, check out our Dizzy Gillespie printable mini-unit! We read the book “Dizzy” and then listened to his music while we completed the unit. The phrase “Salt Peanuts” became quite popular in our house for a while. 🙂

Dizzy by Jonah Winter

Field Trips

It’s easy for history to become very dull for kids, especially those who prefer to move around while learning. We’ve attempted to avoid this by getting our kids out to look at historical exhibits, rather than just listening to us talk about past events. As we learned about the history of slavery, we took a trip to the APEX Museum in Atlanta. Tigger, in particular, was interested to see that slavery really happened and that even children were affected. It definitely helped her relate to our lesson much easier.

During a recent trip to the Atlanta History Center, the kids got to learn more about the history of northern Georgia. They even got to walk through a 19th-century cabin and see what life was like on an 1800s farm for themselves! They talked about that trip for several days afterward. 🙂

During our fall hopscotch, we held a 10-day series on African History for Kids that highlighted African empires, events, and movements. True to our unit study approach, we included books, crafts, cooking, and history in each lesson. Feel free to take a look and let us know what you think!

That wraps up our look at teaching history to kids with ADHD! We’ll be ending the series tomorrow with an overview of how we cover fine arts in our homeschool. We hope to “see” you here then!

This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach history in their families!

Great Zimbabwe Unit Study

October 17, 2013 by Selena Robinson 7 Comments

As we started researching the history of African kingdoms, we found out so much about empires that we didn’t even know existed! Africa was home to many advanced civilizations that existed long before the modern Western world. In fact, some of the architectural accomplishments of these empires were so advanced that people didn’t even believe they were real!

That’s what we discovered as we started learning about the Great Zimbabwe empire. Find out more about this kingdom in our Great Zimbabwe unit study!

Study even more African kingdoms with our Ancient Nubia Unit Study or our Zulu Empire Unit!

Great Zimbabwe Unit Study

Where Was Great Zimbabwe?

Great Zimbabwe was the capital of the Zimbabwe Kingdom in the southern part of Africa. In fact, the capital’s ruins are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the country of Zimbabwe. Speaking of Zimbabwe, do you know what that name means?

We didn’t. But we learned that there are two possible meanings for the name: Dzimba-dza-mabwe, which is Karanga for “large houses of stone”, or dzimba-hwe, which is Zezuru for “venerated houses”. The city itself was in existence for about 400 years, from the years 1100 to about 1500 C.E.

How Big was Great Zimbabwe?

One of the most interesting things we learned about Great Zimbabwe is that it was an African metropolis. At its height, the city encompassed 100 to 200 miles and was home to 10,000 to 20,000 people. Since the city’s revenue was based on trading gold, ivory, and cattle, most inhabitants were fairly wealthy.

You can get an idea of its scope by looking at the size of the Great Enclosure, which was the wall that surrounded most of the city:

Image c/o: Jens Klinzing

To see just how large these buildings were, look at the scale of the man in the picture walking inside the city:

Image c/o: David Holt London

Great Zimbabwe Architecture

Since Great Zimbabwe was the capital, it had the most magnificent architecture. What was especially fascinating to us was that the builders created the city without using mortar or mud. Instead, they heated the stones to break them into bricks and then placed them atop each other in a way that ensured they would stay up.

The fact that some of these structures are still standing today when they are literally made of stacks of rocks is incredible. In fact, some early historians were so impressed with the design of these buildings that they claimed Africans could not have built the structures and attempted to manufacture a fake history to back up their story. Despicable.

Image c/o: rosshuggett

Image c/o: Kay Adams

Naturally, we had to try our hand at the architecture of Great Zimbabwe. We broke out our play beach sand and attempted to recreate the Great Enclosure.

It’s harder than it looks. But it helps when you have lots of willing hands.

Not even close. I can’t imagine trying this by stacking enormous stone blocks on top of each other.

Books and Resources about Great Zimbabwe

These affiliate books and resources provide even more information about this incredible empire!

Wikipedia: Great Zimbabwe – Wikipedia’s page about Great Zimbabwe is very extensive, covering the entire dominant period of the Zimbabwe kingdom.

The BBC: The Story of Africa – Nice summary of the Great Zimbabwe capital and the efforts of some historians to deny that the city was of African origin.

UNESCO: Great Zimbabwe National Monument – Beautiful slideshow of pictures of the stone city.

Michigan State University: Exploring Africa – A complete lesson plan about the history of Africa during the Zimbabwe Kingdom

South African History Online: Great Zimbabwe – Basic facts about the Zimbabwe kingdom: trade system, size, and the history of the name.

PBS Nova: Mysteries of Great Zimbabwe – In-depth look at the discoveries made at Great Zimbabwe and the lengths one historian went to in an attempt to give credit for its architecture to non-Africans.

Black African empires by Joan Joseph (A First book)

African Beginnings

Zimbabwe (Enchantment of the World, Second)

Learn even more about Great Zimbabwe and other African empires in our African Kingdoms Printable Unit Study! Click the image or the link below to grab it from our Store!

>>> African Kingdoms Printable Unit Study <<<

This post is part of the Autumn 2013 Hopscotch from iHomeschool Network! Click below to see all of the Hopscotch posts from our fellow bloggers:

Ancient Nubia Unit Study for Kids

October 16, 2013 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

In many places, children learn very little about ancient African civilizations in elementary school. But there’s so much to discover about African empires! One of the first (and wealthiest) was Ancient Nubia. Help children discover this civilization with this Ancient Nubia unit study for kids!

Ancient Nubia is just one of the African empires we’ve studied over the years. Be sure to see our Zulu Empire Unit and our Ancient Egypt Unit also!

Ancient Nubia Unit Study for Kids

Where was Ancient Nubia?

Like most early civilizations in Africa, the kingdoms of Nubia were situated around water. In fact, the kingdom of Kush was located just down the Nile River from Egypt. We marked the location of the empire on our Africa map.

According to historians, the names Kush and Nubia can be used interchangeably, but most people still refer to the area as Nubia. While the name “Nubia” has come to be associated with dark skin or dark color, it actually means “Land of Gold”.

True to this name, Nubia’s revenue was largely based on its large reserves of gold. Eventually, Kush became so wealthy that it conquered Egypt for a time. Some ancient art shows images of traders from Kush bringing gold to Egypt for sale:

Image c/o: HistoryFiles.co.uk

We also learned that the Bible speaks about the ancient kingdom of Kush. Psalm 68:31 associates Kush with Egypt when it says, “Bronzeware things will come out of Egypt, Cush (Kush) itself will quickly stretch out its hand with gifts to God.” Along with gold, Kush was also rich in precious stones, which were also used heavily in trade. The Bible also supports this at Job 28:19 speaking of “the topaz of Cush (Kush)”.

Nubian Architecture

Like Egypt, Nubia’s architecture consisted largely of religious buildings. The people of Kush viewed the ruler as divine and they constructed pyramids to honor them. Some of these pyramids and ruins are still standing today:

Pyramids at Meroe

Image c/o: Retlaw Snellac

Ruins of the Western Defuffa Religious Building at Kerma

Image c/o: Retlaw Snellac

The Kush Empire and The Nile River

Kush’s location on the Nile River allowed the people to flourish, thanks to plentiful irrigation for farming. Some of the typical crops included sweet potatoes, beans, and onions. The people in the area were also surrounded by several kinds of animals, which lived in the area around the Nile.

To look at animal life along the Nile, we made a paper craft about Nile animals from the book History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3.

Roo decided to color his entire Nile River map magenta, which made it look quite…interesting.

After we colored our Nile River maps, we added a crocodile attached with a string of yarn so it could “swim” up and down the river.

And, of course, we had to try out some African-inspired headwraps!

Books and Resources about Ancient Nubia

PBS: Wonders of the African World – Lots of facts and history about ancient Nubia with photographs of the region’s ruins.

Ancient Africa for Kids – A kid-friendly summary of how the kingdom of Kush was established and how it thrived.

HistoryFiles: Kingdoms of East Africa – Timeline of Nubia’s development and growth with photos

Black African Empires (A First book) – This is an excellent book by Joan Joseph about many of the early African kingdoms. It’s hard to find on Amazon, but there are several copies available from AbeBooks.

History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3

African Beginnings

YouTube: Wonders of the African World – Episodes 1 & 2 “Black Kingdoms of the Nile”

For more about Ancient Nubia and other African empires, pick up a copy of African Kingdoms! A Printable Elementary Unit Study about Ancient Africa! Click the image or the link below to grab it from our Store!

>>> African Kingdoms Printable Unit Study <<<

This post is part of the Autumn 2013 Hopscotch from iHomeschool Network! Click below to see all of the Hopscotch posts from our fellow bloggers:

Ancient Egypt History for Kids

October 15, 2013 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

Studying African history has always been important in our family. Over the years, many schoolbooks have omitted or glossed over ancient African kingdoms and we wanted to make sure that our children learn the truth about these civilizations, no matter what.

To start, we focused on the Ancient Egyptian civilization, which is world-famous as a kingdom that prized mathematics, law, agriculture, and writing – among other things. But many school lessons have presented a view of Ancient Egypt that is at odds with what historians have discovered, including what the Egyptians looked like, what they accomplished, and who ruled the kingdom over the years.

So we put together our own lesson about Ancient Egypt history for kids! Read on to learn more about this fascinating and accomplished civilization that you can share with your children!

If you love this unit, be sure to check out our list of must-read black history books for kids!

Ancient Egyptian Architecture

Egypt is probably the best known ancient African kingdom. The main reason for this is that there are so many archaeological sites that testify to what life was like in Ancient Egypt.

We looked at some images of Egyptian ruins to get an idea of the extraordinary accomplishments made in architecture, design, and mathematics by Egyptians. We looked particularly at the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Abu Simbel temples.

The Great Pyramid, for example, took over 20 years to complete. Its design is so mathematically precise that historians still cannot understand how the Egyptians built it. They even doubt that the same structure could be reproduced today.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Sphinx

Image c/o: Fred Hsu

The Temples at Abu Simbel

Image c/o: Dennis Jarvis

The kids made some miniature models of the Great Pyramid of Khufu out of paper. We got this activity from the book History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations.

To make the pyramids, we simply cut out the paper shapes and then colored them.

Then we folded them on the lines and added glue to make them stand up.

All finished!

As you can tell, this craft was a pretty big hit.

Hatshepsut, the Female Pharaoh

We also learned about the first female Pharaoh, Hatshepsut. Tigger, in particular, was interested to find out about her. We picked up the book African Princess: The Amazing Lives of Africa’s Royal Women and read about her life and reign.

She was truly an incredible woman and ruler. In many art pieces and statues, she is portrayed as a man with a beard. At the time, a female Pharaoh was unheard of and scholars think that the succeeding Pharaohs decided to show her as a man to hide her existence. But a few statues of her exist that show her as a woman.

This one is on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston:

Image c/o: Keith Schengili-Roberts

Hatshepsut was so revered as a Pharaoh that she was buried at her own temple at Deir el-Bahari:

Image c/o: Olaf Tausch

What Did Ancient Egyptians Look Like?

One of the things that has long irritated me about the images of ancient Egyptians in popular culture is that they are often portrayed as being very fair-skinned. I’ve personally seen a lot of children’s history resources use cartoons that show Egyptians as Caucasian people dressed in Middle Eastern attire.

To counter this view, we looked at some examples of ancient Egyptian art that clearly shows ancient Egyptians as brown-skinned people:

Image c/o: Angelfire.com/ky/southernrock

Image c/o: StewartSynopsis.com

We also learned that Egyptians were very fond of jewelry and that both men and women wore it regularly. Women typically wore lots of eye makeup, as well as elaborate collars such as this:

Image c/o: woodsboy2011

In fact, here’s a relief at the Hathor Temple showing the same kind of collar:

Image c/o: isawnyu

Where Was Ancient Egypt?

To give the kids a better idea of how the ancient kingdoms of Africa were situated, we decided to make a simple map of them. We purchased the Discover Africa notebooking set from Balancing Everything and used the blank Africa maps as the basis for our template. (It is a truly wonderful geography unit for all 54 countries on the African continent.)

We began by marking the area covered by Ancient Egypt and we’ll be filling in the map with the other kingdoms we feature.

If you’d like to check out the Discover Africa notebooking set, you can see it for yourself by visiting Balancing Everything or by clicking below:

Books and Resources about Ancient Egypt

Here are the books and resources we used for this lesson.

PBS: Wonders of the African World – This website is based on a PBS series from the 1990s written and narrated by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Sections cover Egypt, Nubia, and Swahili.