Black History Month Collaborative “Quilt” Project

I love, LOVE this idea for a Black History Month project for middle school kids from Jenny Knappenberger. She has a set of 30 printable hexagonal blocks that include the name and portrait of an inspiring Black figure from history, as well as space for a little biography of the person.

Students can research and write about their person, then the class can put their blocks together to make a “quilt” or artistic bulletin board showing all their historical figures.

If your kids are virtual they can still do this and send in pictures of their completed blocks, which could be connected digitally, or make a digital photo album of all their “blocks” so everyone in the class can see them and learn from their classmate’s research.

Learn more at her website or grab the project from Teachers Pay Teachers.

[Photo: Jenny Knappenberger.]

Check out these classroom decor items for Black History Month Decorations

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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