Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Alabama

Alabama was the first state in our 50 states project (alphabetical order). I'm not going to list every single resource we collected here, but figured I'd at least share the books we read, and our art project. 

I will note that we spent time on MLK and John Lewis in Alabama, although we could equally have talked about them in Georgia, but AL was the heart of their civil rights movement work (and where John Lewis grew up). We may circle back though, when we get to Georgia.

Books:
  • Y is for Yellowhammer: An Alabama Alphabet

  • Exploring the States: Alabama

  • Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis by Jabari Asim

  • Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport

  • The Quilts of Gee’s Bend

  • Belle, the Last Mule at Gee’s Bend: A Civil Rights Story by Alexander Ramsey Calvin and Bettye Stroud

  • Ultimate Field Trip 5: Blasting Off to Space Academy

Art project:

Alabama quilts project

After reading The Last Mule at Gee's Bend, and perusing the photos of actual quilts in The Quilts of Gee's Bend, plus viewing a short video about the quilts online, we were ready to make our own collage version. If you don't know about the Gee's Bend quilts, I definitely encourage you to learn more. They are beautiful and come with a lot of history from the African American women who make them, and have passed down their quilting tradition while supporting their families and community. After coming up with the idea of doing Gee's Bend inspired quilts via collage I did some searching and found a couple of bloggers who have done this before, so we looked and their ideas as well:

How we did it: I cut 5 sheets of 8/12 x 11 card stock into four equal rectangles so that we had a pile of 4 each in 5 different colors. The kids each selected 4 pieces to be their quilt squares. The remaining pieces they cut up free form and pasted on their squares in the design of their choosing. Then we pasted all 4 quilt pieces on a piece of black 9x12 construction paper for backing.


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