Black History Month

Happy February! Whew, January flew by. 

Now we are in the month of love, hearts, AND African American History. I am SO excited to share this project I did with my 4th grade class for Black History Month last Spring during my internship. My class was very lucky and they got a solid 40 minutes of history every single day. I know that doesn't always happen. We definitely don't get that much time in third grade. Still, I thought I would share this idea with you and maybe you can find a way to make it work for your class. 

I'll call this activity the:

African American Research Activity

(I've never been a very creative person hence the lame name for this activity. hah)

Basically the class is broken into groups. They are given a famous African American and they are to research that person. I gave each group a couple books about their person that I checked out from the library. In the download you will find a worksheet for them to fill out as they go. It took block of history time to get the information on paper.

This is the worksheet given to students.

The second day students worked together to transfer their information onto a poster. This was definitely the most fun part. They had a template to follow, and they created a stick person poster of their famous African American.

This is the stick person template the students followed.

One the third and final day, the students stood up and presented their poster to the class. 

The super cute finished products:

 

My 4th graders LOVED this assignment because it was so different from what we normally did during history. I loved this activity because it taught students how to research, how to work together, and they were able to practice their presentation skills. 

CLICK HERE to download the worksheet and poster template! 

Don't forget to leave some love (and follow me on TPT) if you download. 

I like to think maybe one day I will make some stuff that is good enough to sell. =) 

PS: I have no clue who came up with this super cute idea for researching people. 

I learned about this in my teaching history class in college. =)

Let me know what you think! What do you do for black history month? 

Also, I have 49 followers...SOMEONE, ANYONE follow me so I can make it to 50! I am SO close. =)