Travelling the Underground Railroad (Crayons' Grade 5)

We don't usually do unit studies in our homeschool.  But I had thought about spending a couple of weeks during February emphasizing the Underground Railroad.  We are just about at that point in our Canadian history book, February is Black History Month, and so on.

So I was very interested to come across an ad for a homeschool mom's unit study on that topic, and went so far as to ask Mr. Fixit to pay to download it.

I'm not going to name the study or the company, because I was very disappointed in what we received.  What we got, we'll use, but it certainly is skimpy.  However, I did make a list  of other related material that we are going to work into February's school.  Here are some ideas:

Adventures in Odyssey Episodes #314-316, "The Underground Railroad."  We borrowed these on CD from a friend.  Note that they are a bit intense--not for the youngest children.

The American Girl Addy books, from the library.  I took the six books out from the library last weekend, and Crayons has already read through all of them.  They're quite well done, and they cover not only Addy's early life and escape from slavery, but also what life was like afterwards for her family in Philadelphia.  Each book has historical notes in the back.

The Last Safe House, by Barbara Greenwood (combines story, historical notes, and a few activities)

Underground to Canada, a novel by Barbara Smucker (there's a chapter-by-chapter study guide here)

Freedom Train, by Dorothy Sterling (biography of Harriet Tubman)

Poems from this website

Composers such as William Grant Still and Joe Sealy

One book I found which I did not like that much:  The Underground Railroad for Kids.  Maybe it was the title,  maybe it was just the fact that the library's copy was so beat up, but it just didn't seem like the sort of book you would want to turn kids loose with--more than intense, this one was a bit on the Martyr's Mirror end of things.  There are lots of great photographs, which you could use selectively. Some interesting activities, but they're the sort of projects we probably would end up just reading about, not doing.

ADDITIONS: I forgot that we have a copy of Life in Lincoln's America, by Helen Reeder Cross, which is the perfect sort of book for finding "artifacts." 

And I forgot to add something we already watched:  a Wishbone episode called "Bark That Bark." Not totally about the Underground Railroad, but it does incorporate a version of "The People Could Fly."



And there are lots of websites, of course.

More ideas?

Related posts: Schedule for the first week of this study, Four poems by Arna Bontemps

Linked from the Carnival of Homeschooling