• First Graders love to learn through creative activities.cute child image by NorthShoreSurfPhotos from Fotolia.com
  
  Reading about history can be fun. But creating projects that coincide with the reading is also fun. First graders enjoy using the creative sides of their brains and have a lot of ideas waiting to be created. While Black History Month is customarily celebrated in February, these black history projects can be done anytime.
  
  

Trading Cards

• This project requires that the first graders have access to books or to online resources where they can learn about famous African-Americans. Each first grader should look through the books to find an African-American that they would like to use for this project. Using unlined papers, 4 x 6 index cards work well; allow each first grader to take one to start. On one side of the card, the first grader writes the name of the person she chose and three sentences about that person. On the other side, she draws a picture of that person.
  
  

Milk Carton Bus

• After learning or reading about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Strike, first graders can create milk carton buses to represent the change in the transportation system. To start, each child needs an empty milk carton. The folded end is opened, so that the rectangular shape resembles a bus. The children can paint the milk cartons yellow, similar to the school buses they may be familiar with. After the paint has dried, the children can start working on one side of the bus. Along the bottom of the bus, she can draw tires write the word "before." She can draw the windows along the side of the bus and people sitting inside the bus. Black people should be drawn in the back, white people in the front. Now, she can work on the other side. Along the bottom of the other side, she can draw tires and write the word "after." She can draw the windows and the people inside the bus. On this side, the black people and the white people should be intermingled.
  
  

Prominent Figures Timeline

• First graders can create a timeline of prominent leaders in black history. Using a large size poster board, the child can draw a line down the middle of the board. The current year should be written near one end, but not all the way at the end. This indicates that there will be more events or prominent black Americans in the future. The child should write 1700 (or another year of your choosing) at the other end of the line. As the child reads about different people, he can write their name and the year on the timeline and draw a picture of the person.