history Archives

We Got Jazz! – A Jazz Black History Unit Study

January 21, 2021 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 of 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 Got Jazz Digital and Print Black History Unit

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, comprehension reviews, and listening activities for kids in grades 1-3!

Read on to see how to get your copy! And, if you need a digital version for distance learning – there’s one of those too.

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 Elementary Digital and Print Unit for Kids

We Got Jazz! Black History Unit Study

We have always enjoyed the sounds of jazz.

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.

Which is why I hope that your students find this black history unit enjoyable too!

We Got Jazz! features five biography units of jazz greats:

Dizzy Gillespie
Nat King Cole
Ella Fitzgerald
Miles Davis
and Duke Ellington

The section for each artist includes a comprehensive, age-appropriate biography of their life and career.

This is followed by a question and answer review activity to see what students have learned from the biography.

Black History Jazz Unit Comprehension Activities

Then there’s a crossword puzzle, a timeline sequencing activity, and a listening activity (with a link to where to find each artist’s music) to help students learn even more about each artist.

Depending on what your lesson plan includes, you could take one artist a week.

You might try covering the biography with the class. Then students can complete the activities on their own.

Black History Jazz Artist Biographies for Kids

Or you could spend a week discussing them all!

Read the biography with the class and then assign them to complete the review activities for homework or independent work.

Plus, a full answer key is included for easy grading!

See the full product flip through below!

Digital We Got Jazz Black History Unit

Are you distance learning this year? Or just looking to save on printer ink?

We Got Jazz! is also available in a digital version!

The digital version, which is compatible with Google Slides, contains all of the information and just as many activities as the print version.

Digital Jazz Black History Unit for Elementary

After reading about each artist, students can type their answers to the review questions – directly on the slides.

Digital Black History Duke Ellington Unit

They can drag and drop the events in each artist’s life into the correct sequence.

Instead of a crossword puzzle, there is a word unscramble activity for each person.

And you can use the digital answer key (which is delivered in a separate file) to grade student submissions in no time!

See the video preview of the digital version of We Got Jazz below!

Scroll down to get the print or digital version of We Got Jazz for your students!

Check out more black history learning activities below!

Digital and Print Ruby Bridges History Lesson

These Black history matching puzzles are a fun way to teach elementary students about notable Black Americans!

Looking for the digital version of We Got Jazz? Pick it up in my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

>>> Digital We Got Jazz Unit for Elementary <<<

Elementary Jazz Black History Unit for Kids

To get the print version of We Got Jazz!, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store or check it out below!

20 Fascinating Books about Black Inventors and Scientists

January 24, 2019 by Selena Robinson 2 Comments

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 2 Comments

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

African Kingdoms Unit Study Nubia Lesson

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!

Printable African Kingdoms Geography Activity

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!

Learning about black history is such an important part of a child's education. Make it fun with these must-read black history books for kids!

Studying the Harlem Renaissance with Kendall Hunt Publishing

To get your copy of African Kingdoms! Printable African History Unit Study, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store or check it out below!

Harlem Renaissance Unit Study

January 16, 2018 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

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!

Entry -Form

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For more ideas to teach hands-on history to your kids, follow my Living History for Kids Pinterest board!

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 Coles

It’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.