Celebrating Black History Month Lesson Plans and FREE file

February is a busy month! It is also the time to learn more about some amazing Americans and to celebrate Black History Month.

Books to read

Here a just a few of my favorite books to read! (affiliate)

• When Marion Sang by Pam Munoz Ryan
• If a Bus Could Talk by Faith Ringgold
• The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles
• Our Children Can Soar by Michelle Cook

The Writing Station-FREE

I made you all a free mini-unit to celebrate some of these amazing leaders in black history.  This is a mini-writing center that is formatted like my other writing station units.  You can see my monthly writing stations HERE.  You will find the link to this free unit at the end of this blog post.

As we approach Black History Month (and every month thereafter), I think it is important to have conversations with our students about race and bias.  However, sometimes it is hard to know what to say or fearing that you will say the wrong thing.   So I wanted to share a resource that may help guide you.

• WHY CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RACISM BELONG IN THE CLASSROOM

Other center activities for February

Here are a few more activities that work great in February!

Write the room activities

In this activity, students are adding the ending sounds to words.  Then they write the word and draw a picture to match.

Students are writing various sight words that are placed around the room.   Because the words are editable, it is really easy to adjust this activity to meet student needs.  You can find these HERE.

Story sequencing and writing

Students love putting these cards in order.  Then they turn their attention to writing their story.  They first cut out the black and white versions of the pictures and add them to their book.  The word bank really helps to support writers.  This could be done as a whole group, then moved into an independent center. You can find these HERE.

Fluency Center

Students love the Time Me station!  A great way to build fluency!   The Dolch words are loaded on the cards already, but because they are editable, I can quickly make a set specific for an individual student or group.  EASY! You can find this HERE.

Differentiated cubes

These students are working on counting on!  You can find this activity HERE.

Poetry listening station

QR codes have been added to the Poetry Music and Video units so students can easily turn the videos into a sing-a-long!

I also added the QR code to the student version.  In this way, students can take their poetry notebook home and practice!  Perfect for fluency Friday!

You can find the Music Videos in the following links:

Poetry Music and Video 1st Edition, Poetry Music and Video 2nd Edition, Poetry Music and Video Nursery Rhyme Edition

I hope you have a fantastic week.  Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of this post to grab your FREE file!