Living History Series Archives - Look! We're Learning!

The Living History Series: Duke Ellington

March 7, 2014 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

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If you’ve been following along with our blog for a while, you’ve probably caught on to a recurring theme in our Living History series for the past few months. We’ve learned about Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis so far. Naturally, we’re focusing on giants of jazz! Of course, we can’t do a jazz series without talking about Duke Ellington, so he’s our focus for March. 🙂

I’m a little more familiar with Duke’s work than I have been with the previous artists in the series. I’ve heard his music pretty often. In fact, “In a Sentimental Mood”, which is one of my favorite jazz songs ever, was on an episode of The Cosby Show. I’ve loved that song ever since.

We’ll be learning more about Duke Ellington’s life, career, and legacy this month, and we’ll be using some of the books below to help the kids get to know his music.

Books about Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra

Duke Ellington: His Life in Jazz with 21 Activities (For Kids series)

Duke Ellington (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers)

Stay tuned to find out how you can grab our Duke Ellington Biography Unit!

Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit

February 28, 2014 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Good morning y’all! We made it through yet another week! 🙂 It’s the end of the month, so it’s time for another entry in the Living History series! This month we’ve been learning about Miles Davis.

Miles Davis had a comfortable upbringing, but a very troubled life. Ironically, his experiences seemed to help him grow and change as a musician, which is what led to his extremely long jazz career. He also made some terrible choices, eventually managing to rebuild his life with the help of his family and his love for music. He is most certainly not a role model, but his perseverance in the face of serious problems offers a great lesson for kids.

We’ve put together a free Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit that you’re welcome to use with your family! In this pack, you’ll find:

A kid-friendly biography of Miles Davis
Review questions to help kids remember what they learned
A Miles Davis crossword puzzle
And copywork based on an interview with the jazz great!

To download your copy of the Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit, click the image or link below!

Miles Davis Biography Mini Unit

The Living History Series: Miles Davis

February 10, 2014 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

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Image courtesy: Tom Palumbo via Wikimedia Commons

We’re feeling “kind of blue” this month, so it’s time to learn about famous jazz trumpeter Miles Davis for the Living History series! Besides knowing that his name is almost synonymous with jazz, I don’t know much about Davis at all. I can only remember hearing one or two songs of his, so he’s next on our list!

Speaking of “Kind of Blue”, here’s one of the songs from Davis’ landmark 1959 album called “So What”. This one features John Coltrane on the tenor sax. (In fact, Coltrane will be one of our future history series figures.)

As part of our unit, we’ll be reading a few books about Miles Davis this month, including:

Lookin’ for Bird in the Big City

Milestones: The Music And Times Of Miles Davis

Miles: An Autobiography by Miles Davis

The Miles Davis Reader

Come back on February 28th to see what we learned about jazz legend Miles Davis!

Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini-Unit

January 31, 2014 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

Happy Friday! We’re wrapping up this week with another entry in our Living History series. You might remember that we were supposed to talk about Ella Fitzgerald in our Living History unit last month. Well, Finals Week happened and work happened and, well….better late than never, right?

We started by covering our mini-unit study about Ella Fitzgerald’s life and career. She had a very difficult childhood, but she still managed to make great music. What was especially interesting to me was the fact that Ella didn’t even realize that she was such a great singer. Her real love was dancing. But when she went to audition at the Apollo Theatre, she got intimidated by her dancing competition, so she sang instead. That makes me wonder how many people have hidden talents they don’t even realize.

In the mini-unit, there is a short Ella Fitzgerald biography, along with a crossword puzzle, review questions, and copywork from the song “Take the A Train” – a song that Ella recorded.

We also spent some time watching some of Ella’s classic performances, including this incredible video of her singing and scatting “It Don’t Mean a Thing”.

After we watched the clip, we talked about scatting and how it’s really like making music with your voice instead of an instrument. Jay made the point that beat boxing is essentially a form of scat. Sounds like a new series to do later! 🙂

To grab this Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini-Unit for yourself, just click the image or link below!

Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini Unit

How I Teach History to My Kids with ADHD

January 16, 2014 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

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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!

The Living History Series: Ella Fitzgerald

December 5, 2013 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

Hey everyone! Finals are nearly over and I can finally breathe again, so I’m back! 🙂 It’s a new month and that means it’s time for a new Living History figure! This month, we’ll be learning about jazz great Ella Fitzgerald.

When I was young, I remember hearing my mom speak about Ella a few times and I remember seeing her on television during the 80s. I’d never seen her name written out, so I always thought her name was “Elephants Gerald”…lol.

A few years back, Jay and I were watching PBS and we came across a live performance of Ella singing with Frank Sinatra. I was stunned at how powerful her voice was and how she could just sit down and sing without looking like she was even trying.

Here she is with Sinatra performing “Goin’ Out of My Head”:

See what I mean? She’s just sitting there and yet her voice is wayyyy up in that high octave! Not many singers today could hit those notes even if they strained.

Unfortunately, I don’t know much about Ella other than what I saw on TV, so it’s time to get to know her better. Here are a few of the books about Ella Fitzgerald we’ll be using this month:

Ella Fitzgerald: The Tale of a Vocal Virtuosa

Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat: Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald by Bud Klimet

Ella Fitzgerald: A Biography Of The First Lady Of Jazz

Ella Fitzgerald: The Complete Biography of First Lady of Jazz, Updated Edition

Be sure to stop back by on December 30 to see what we learned about Ella Fitzgerald’s life and career this month!

Nat King Cole Biography Mini-Unit

November 28, 2013 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Hey everyone! It’s November and we’re sharing our latest Living History series mini-unit! This month we learned about the life and legacy of Nat King Cole. We put together a biography mini-unit about Nat King Cole’s career, along with a few exercises, and shared it with the kids.

We learned quite a bit about Nat’s life this month. For example, we learned that he learned to play the piano by ear and that he didn’t begin professional piano lessons until his pre-teen years. We were also interested to learn about Nat’s experiences with racism and how he refused to let those events make him angry or bitter.

After we completed the unit, we watched “An Evening with Nat King Cole”. All of us ended up singing his songs the rest of the day.

To use this unit with your family, feel free to download it by clicking the link below! And be sure to stop by next week to see who we’re learning about during the month of December!

Nat King Cole Biography Mini-Unit

The Living History Series: Nat King Cole

November 4, 2013 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

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Hey everyone! It’s a new month and that means it’s time for another living history figure! We’re loving our study of popular 20th century musicians and we’re keeping it going with a look at the life and career of Nat King Cole.

Jay is a big fan of Nat King Cole’s work. We’ve watched a few of his classic television specials on PBS as a family and we have always been impressed at his grace as a performer. But outside of his work and the fact that he was Natalie Cole’s father, we don’t know a lot about his life. So we’re delving into his background with the kids this month.

Here are a few of the books we’ll be using in our unit:

Nat King Cole (Melrose Square Black American Series)

Nat King Cole by Daniel Mark Epstein

Unforgettable. The Life And Mystique Of Nat King Cole

Nat King Cole by James Haskins

And, for your enjoyment, one of our favorite Nat King Cole TV specials:

Stop back by on November 26 to see what we learned about Nat King Cole!

The Living History Series: Dizzy Gillespie Biography Mini-Unit

October 29, 2013 by Selena Robinson 6 Comments

Hi everyone! This month’s Living History series figure was Dizzy Gillespie and today we’re sharing a free biography mini-unit about this jazz great!

Naturally, our kids didn’t have a clue who he was, so they got a chance to learn about Dizzy’s early life, career, and accomplishments. (Sidenote: We used to call Pooh Dizzy when he was a baby because of his cheeks. As you can see, he’s still got them!)

Keep Reading…

The Living History Series: Dizzy Gillespie

October 7, 2013 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

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Image c/o: Wikimedia Commons

It’s time for another Living History figure! We enjoyed our study of Otis Redding so much last month that we’re going with another American music icon for October: Dizzy Gillespie.

The only things I personally know about Dizzy Gillespie are that he was a great trumpet player, that he recorded “A Night in Tunisia” with Charlie Parker, and that he blew his cheeks out to enormous proportions when he played.Keep Reading…

The Living History Series: Otis Redding Biography Mini-Unit

October 1, 2013 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Good morning everyone! As you can see, we’re back to posting every weekday! Yay!

Last month, we chose Otis Redding as our historical figure for the Living History Series. We were surprised to find that there were very few books available about his life, especially for children. So we put together a biography mini-unit of our own.

Tigger enjoyed learning about Otis’s life and career. She was surprised to learn that he and his family picked cotton to earn money and that he grew up in Georgia in a town about an hour away from us. We also learned that Otis drew his inspiration from several other Georgia musicians, such as Little Richard. In fact, one of the first songs Otis would sing as a teenager was “Tooti Frutti”.

After we read the biography, Tigger got to work answering the review questions. She especially liked completing the crossword puzzle and the copywork with lyrics from “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay”.

Naturally, we had to listen to “Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay”.

If you’d like to learn more about Otis Redding’s life, career, and accomplishments, feel free to download the free Otis Redding Biography Mini-Unit by clicking the image or link below! It’s appropriate for grades 2-4.

Otis Redding Biography Mini-Unit

The Living History Series: Otis Redding

September 3, 2013 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

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Good morning everyone! Thanks for stopping back by to see us this week! Before we go any further, I have an announcement to make about Look! We’re Learning!

We’re going to be cutting back to sharing posts two or three times a week for a while. I’ve just started college classes and…what a difference a decade makes! I remember being so much smarter before I had kids! So I’m taking a mini-break from blogging five days a week until I get my footing with my classes. But don’t worry, we’ll be back to full strength with a 10-day series on African History in October, so stay tuned for that!

In the meantime, we’re continuing with our Living History series and this month we’re focusing on a largely unsung soul musician – Otis Redding. Both Jay and I realized that we know almost nothing about his life and career, so that’s our next historical figure. We’ll be spending some time learning about his musical style, his songs, and his personal life during September.

Surprisingly, there are no children’s books about Otis Redding’s life, so we’ll be adapting the following books for use with the kids:

The Otis Redding Story by Jane Schiesel

Otis!: The Otis Redding Story by Scott Freeman

So far, I’ve found a few comprehensive websites about his life, accomplishments, and untimely death. If you’d like to follow along with us, feel free to check out these resources.

Helpful Links:

The official website of Otis Redding’s life and work: http://otisredding.com/

Biography from Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/otis-redding

The Museum of American Soul Music biography: http://www.staxmuseum.com/about/artists/view/otis-redding

Biography from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://rockhall.com/inductees/otis-redding/bio/

Full biography on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Redding

Be sure to stop back by during the last week of September to see how we learned about Otis Redding with our family!

Living History for Kids: Nelson Mandela Unit Study

August 29, 2013 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

Hi everyone! It’s the end of the month, so it’s time to share our living history unit for this month! Our Living History figure for August was Nelson Mandela.

We began by reading the book Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom with the kids to give them a background about Mandela’s life and experiences. We talked a lot about what apartheid was and why it was so unfair to black people in South Africa. We all agreed that it was a good thing that apartheid no longer exists. The kids were also surprised to learn that a similar policy was in place in the United States until a few decades ago.

Following the lead of the Teacher’s Guide for “Long Walk to Freedom”, we decided to make a timeline of the crucial events in Mandela’s life. To get all the kids involved, we had the boys write the years and Tigger write the notable event that occurred that year.

Our timeline highlights were:

1918 – Mandela born

1925 – Started school

1937 – Went to college

1944 – Joins the ANC (African National Congress)

1948 – Apartheid begins

1956 – Charged with treason

1960 – ANC banned

1964 – Sent to prison

1990 – Released

1994 – Elected President

After our timeline was complete, we began discussing the Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to Mandela for his work in behalf of equal rights in South Africa. We asked the kids what qualities they thought a person needed to have in order to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Here’s what they came up with:

Pooh said the person must be loving, Roo said that the person had to show respect, and Tigger said that the Nobel Peace Prize recipient should serve others. Then we asked them who they thought deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Pooh said that he thought Jesus should receive it. We couldn’t agree more!

Tigger did some research on who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and then we made our own Nobel Peace Prize. The kids added their own decorative touches. Pooh drew a fox, Roo drew a person with “a lot of legs”, and Tigger added the ASL sign for “I love you”. I guess those things are somehow related to peace?

We enjoyed learning about Nelson Mandela with the kids this month!

Our New Project: The Living History Series

July 30, 2013 by Selena Robinson 7 Comments

Hi everyone! We’re getting ready for a new school year here in our household and one of the areas I’m most concerned with is history. I’ve been hesitant to use traditional history books with our children so far, because many of them choose to ignore or downplay important events. I’m not interested in teaching our children fairy tales disguised as history nor am I interested in teaching them a version that conveniently glosses over unflattering truths. As a result, putting together an honest, all-inclusive history curriculum is an ongoing project of mine.

Of course, if I were to wait until I finished this before I taught history to my kids, we’d never get started. So this year, we’re going to begin a project called “The Living History Series”, because one good way to learn history is to start by examining the lives of notable figures. As we sat down to talk about this, Jay and I realized that there were individuals that we didn’t know much about either and those are the people we’re starting with.

Our Living History figure for August is Nelson Mandela.

I’m currently reading his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom” and we’re going to read the children’s version with our kids. I also grabbed several great online resources to put together a lesson plan and I’ve included the links below:

Kid World Citizen – Nelson Mandela Autobiography

BBC – Famous People: Nelson Mandela

MacMillan – Teacher’s Guide: Long Walk to Freedom

Oxfam Education – Nelson Mandela

PBS Frontline – Viewer’s and Teacher’s Guide: Nelson Mandela

Stop back by on August 29 to see what we learned about Nelson Mandela this month!