This month we have been learning about different important people in Black History. We did a group activity to learn about 4 very important people: Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. I split the children up into groups using the random chooser on our smart board. Each group was responsible for learning about a particular person and then creating some type of poster to show to the other children in our class. Within the groups, each child had a specific job. The reader read a short book about the person that the group was learning about, the recorder did the writing, the materials manager was responsible for getting all of the materials that they needed, and the presenter presented their person during a gallery walk after we were finished.
The groups did a fantastic job! I loved walking around and getting to see the way the posters were coming along. (They are in our hallway if you'd like to check them out!)
After each group completed their poster, we did a gallery walk. Each group's presenter shared their poster with the different groups as they walked around from group to group. They started out by sharing with their own groups to get all of their facts together and then we spent 2 minutes at each presenter, learning about the different people that they represented.
We also read one of my favorite books that describes a true story of a man who mailed himself to freedom, Henry's Freedom Box.
The children really enjoyed the story about Henry. After we read it, we got a huge box and put ourselves into it to see how Henry might have felt when he mailed himself the 27 hours to Philadelphia. The kids made comments like "it's dark" and "it's cramped". They began to understand how Henry would have felt, but how important it was to him to get to freedom. They learned that he didn't care about those things...all he cared about was being free to make his own choices.
After we had put ourselves into Henry's shoes, we made our own Freedom Boxes. I encouraged the children to think about what they would want to have in their box if they were going to mail themselves. Some of the things that they would have liked to have included pillows to keep comfortable, a friend so they wouldn't be lonely, food, maps, and compasses. They did a great job empathizing with Henry!
We also learned about Spirituals. Many of us have heard these songs before, but didn't realize the full meaning of them. One of our gallery walk groups taught us about Harriet Tubman and we learned that she was nicknamed "Moses" because she delivered so many people from slavery. We listened to some of the songs and found out that they were actually secret coded maps to freedom! We discussed the songs and what they might mean...
For example:
Follow the drinking gourd This line means follow the big dipper.
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is a waitin This means that someone will be waiting there
'For to carry you to freedom to show you the way to get to freedom.
Follow the drinking gourd
The riverbank will make a mighty good road This tells us to follow the river.
The dead trees show you the way This tells us landmarks along the way.
Left foot, peg foot travelin' on
Following the drinking gourd
The kids thought this was so cool that the slaves used secret code to escape to freedom!
We have learned a lot about Black History and all of the people who helped make things the way they are for us today where we can be free to make our own choices. Thank you to all of those people! It is hard for us to imagine a world where people are not free and can't do what they choose, so I hope that these activities gave the children an idea of how lucky we are to have that freedom and an understanding of how things were in the past.
