Black History Month - What We Learned

We took a little time this month to learn some black history. We didn't do as much as I had hoped but we (yup even mommy) did managed to learn a few very interesting things. Since we were already planning to learn about Africa we discussed how the Africans were brought to America on boats to become slaves. We read a lot of books written by African American authors and even got to meet one and listen to him speak at the library. After reading a few of the books we discussed what segregation and discrimination were and how it affected African Americans lives. I am sure as the kids get older we will cover a lot more of this important part of our American history but for now I wanted to keep it simple since it is such a difficult subject especially for kids to grasp.

Our library always has coloring pages for the kids and this month they had pictures of famous African Americans. Gwyn chose to color a picture of Sarah Breedlove Walker. Did you know
she was the 1st African American millionaire? She created the first line of African American hair products.

I highly recommend these two books by Calvin Ramsey the author we had the pleasure of meeting. It was so awesome to meet an author especially one that wrote such amazing books. So far he only has these two books.

 
After we reading this book we learned about The Green Book. Something I personally never knew existed until after reading the wonderful kids book Ruth and the Green Book. I was shocked that such an important piece of history was never covered in my 12 yrs of schooling. Do you know that a copy of the Green Book sells for about $4000. The majority of them are in libraries or museums though. I also learned more about the Jim Crow. And that it wasn't a who but a what.

 
After reading this Belle the Last Mule at Gee's Bend we learned why Mules were used to pull the carriage that carried Dr. Martin Luther Kings coffin. Tissue warning mommas this book may make you cry. Oh and your little ones too if they are emotional. Again something I never learned about in school.


Free Resources:
-Pdf of the real Green Book. Also check out this website.
-Information about why Dr. Martin Luther Kings carriage was drawn by mules.
-Information on Sarah Breedlove Walker
-Coloring pages of famous African Americans

So what exciting new thing did you learn this month? If you learned something new please link up a post. And if you could please post my blog button either in your post or on your sidebar.



Thanks for stopping by.

What this homeschool mommy has learned link up

We have been homeschooling for almost 4 months now and I think I have been learning just as much as the kids. I keep catching myself saying, "wow I didn't know that." When my husband gets home from work I am often more excited than the kids to tell him what I learned for the day, lol. And sometimes even my husband is learning things he didn't know, like that the Black Footed Ferret lives in the mid-west or that there is an Asian Rhino. And boy am I jealous that my kids are homeschooled because they are learning so much more than I ever did in public school!

Recently I have noticed several friends posting comments on Twitter and Facebook making similar comments about the new things they have learned. So I came up with the idea to create a monthly link up for all the homeschool moms to share a post listing the things they learned each month. The link up will start at the beginning of the last week each month and remain up for 7 days. I hope you will join in the fun!!! 

For November here are some things I learned:
1. That the Wampanoag Indians were the first Indian tribe the Pilgrims met.
2. That Turkeys do a dance (that looks sort of like a Waltz) to attract mates.
3. That the Pilgrims ate fish at the first Thanksgiving
4. How Squanto learned to speak English
5. That there is a Spanish holiday called Three Kings Day.

In your blog post could you please share that you joining the link up at my blog by either posting a link to my blog post or sharing my button.

<a href="http://www.kathysclutteredmind.com/search/label/What this homeschool mommy has learned link up" target=”_blank”><img src="http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h453/kbalman/Blogbutton.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>

*If you don't blog you can still join the fun by leaving a comment below with the things you have learned this month.