Master's Coming! An Underground Railroad Activity Idea

This morning our house was dark with a thunderstorm moving through the area.  The boys had all been playing upstairs in the bedrooms with the curtains shut using flashlights playing different games and I was struck with an idea.

I had checked out several books about the underground railroad and slaves trying to escape to freedom this week at the library.  I wanted to at least start teaching some history this week but aside from reading the books I didn't have much planned.



If we're going to really focus on a subject each day I have to make it more exciting than just reading; the boys aren't going to sit there for an hour while I read.  

Unfortunately I didn't have any hands- on lessons planned to go with this introduction.

That's where inspiration struck. 

I wanted the boys to understand what the slaves felt like and how dangerous the journey was for all the people involved, abolitionists too. 


I decided to turn each of their rooms into a stop on the underground railroad!


  • We kept each of the rooms nice and dark and used some big blankets to make a fort in each room (some were barns, some were holes under the floorboards, and some were shacks).  
  • In each fort we read one of the books and discussed it before using the north star to run to the next room.  
  • We occasionally had to stop reading and turn off our flashlights when we heard master coming or the trackers and their dogs at the door.  
  • One time we even heard someone asking about us to the abolitionist whose house we were staying in (This was all prompted by the boys!).  
Our 2nd stop.  It was pitch black without the flash!   
They had so much fun and we read three wonderful books:

Freedom's a- Callin Me by Ntozake Shange


Minty- A story of young Harriet Tubman by Alan Schroeder


Sojourner Truth's Step- Stomp Stride. 


I'm sure this is one lesson they'll remember for a while.  After we were "free" in the north Evan went back with his laser gun to help free more slaves and kill the bad guys in true 4 year old fashion while Ian and Alec played game together.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 15, 2012 at 11:56 AM

    Perfect and awesome lesson on the underground railroad! Love it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phyllis BergenholtzSeptember 1, 2018 at 9:50 AM

    What a fun way to complete some school work! I used to live in a house that had slave quarters in the basement. I often think of that in connection with the underground railroad.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Favorite TV Shows Growing Up in the 80's and early 90's

Image
Do you remember the TGIF lineups on Friday nights? I can remember planning sleepovers and time with friends around TV Show lineups of our favorite shows... or else trying to set the VCR to record our favorite shows if we weren't going to be home. And through the years I had SO MANY favorites! Growing pains aired in 1985 which put me around age 8 and it stayed on the air until I was 15 or so; I'm pretty sure most people in my age group watched mostly for Kirk Cameron and all his antics.  I still have a soft spot for family sit-coms!  The Facts of Life aired when I was just 2  and stayed on the air until I was 11 so I'm sure the episodes I remember so fondly were either some of the later ones and then reruns shown later on when I was old enough to watch from the beginning. I think everyone would have loved an Edna Garret in their lives.   Benson another sitcom that began airing when I was just 2 and was done by the time I was 9 (another one I must have watched mainly through
Read more

Things That Make Me Laugh

Image
I loved the challenge of this week's list for our 26 lists link up.  I don't know about you but I really need to laugh more lately.  It's such a great stress reliever. 1.  Books-- I love a good funny book that makes me laugh out loud.  I haven't read one in a while but if you have any recommendations I'm all ears.  The last book I can remember making me laugh was the Un-Honeymooners. 2  The boys being silly. 3.  Watching shows like America's Funniest Videos or Family Feud. 4. My husband.  Most people don't realize it but he's actually pretty funny and often makes me laugh. 5.  Whenever my sisters/ family get together and we get to reminiscing (particularly if my Aunt Elaine is around) we end up laughing so hard at all the old family stories that we are all in tears by the end of the night.  It's fabulous. 6. Movies like Mom's Night Out, Christmas Vacation, and Grown Ups make me laugh out loud. 7.  When my boys were youn
Read more

Dorm Move In & Alec's Dorm Photos

Image
 Alec and I loaded up the car Wednesday morning. I was literally unable to sleep the night before thinking there was no way we were going to fit all his stuff ( see yesterday's post! ) into my car. But first try we got it all to fit! There wasn't really any room to spare but that's okay, we all fit and so did everything he wanted to bring with him.  Since Alec is in the honors program he got to move in 2 days before the rest of the school (on Thursday).. which meant we didn't hear a whole lot from the school on what to expect for move in day. We were told to be there anywhere between 10 am and 7 pm so we decided to shoot for the 10 am and give ourselves plenty of time. His roommate wouldn't be moving in until Saturday and Alec will have a full day of activities and meetings today (on Friday).  We did label everything with Alec's name, dorm name, and room # just in case and printed out a parking pass (again, just in case)-- none of which we needed to do but were
Read more