African American Crafts & Activities for Children
Teaching children about African American heritage can be as fun and creative as it is educational and informative. The materials needed for these sorts of projects are minimal and inexpensive, relying mainly on research and a creative touch with paints and low-cost objects. Talk with the children engaged in these activities when they've finished them, giving them an opportunity to explain the choices they made during the project and what they learned.
Other People Are Reading
-
Shekere
-
Shekeres are West African percussion instruments, traditionally composed of a dried gourd and similar in shape to a maraca or a Cuban guiro, another instrument made from a gourd. To save the time required to dry gourds, have your class construct shekeres from plastic jugs.
After any decorative paint on the jugs has dried, have students wrap the jugs with beaded craft lace. To finish, secure the loose ends of the beaded lace by tying them securely just under the handle, and put some dried beans in the jugs for extra rattle.
Kente Cloths
-
Kente cloths are a traditional Ghanaian textile made of interwoven silk and cotton. Introduce children to Kente cloths by explaining how the different colors of the fabrics represent different concepts in Ghanaian culture, and show them pictures of different cloths for reference. Next, have the children paint geometric shapes and patterns on 18-inch-by-4-inch strips of paper with tempera paints. These strips are glued onto backing paper in layers, with half the strips weaving horizontally, under and over, the vertically-laid strips, giving the strips a woven appearance. The finished "Kente cloths" should be displayed on a bulletin board, with the Ghanaian meanings of the different colors explained below the artwork.
-
Bio-Boards of Famous African Americans
-
Bio-boards are informative, biographical posters with brief textual and visual summaries of the life of a historical figure. Children can select and research the life of a well-known African American historical figure, and neatly write a five-paragraph biography of the person on the right hand side of a blank poster board. They place pictures of the historical figure in the center of the poster board, and add a small section of a map printout showing where the person was from in the upper left corner. The lower left corner is where children can attach a 3-by-5 card with a relevant trivia question on the front side, with the answer underneath.
Heritage-Specific Kwanzaa Cards
-
A creative way to celebrate their heritage during Kwanzaa is to have children make Kwanzaa cards displaying the flag of their ancestral African country, if they know it, or that of any other African country they choose, on the front. Once children have found a picture of an African flag as a reference, have them cut the various shapes of their flag's design from colored construction paper. They then glue these pieces to the front of a piece of white construction paper that they have folded in half. Students can write "Happy Kwanzaa" on the front of the card in permanent black marker.
-
References
- Photo Credit Mother and child in shade image by geophis from Fotolia.com
