Reliving the Underground Railroad

Your Black History Month plans wouldn't be complete without a lesson on the Underground Railroad. For your preschoolers who may not fully connect with the concept - afterall, as its name might suggest, it is neither underground nor a physical set of tracks - Tricia over at Adventures in Mommydom suggests a more hands-on approach.

Can you imagine how terrifying it would have been to set out on the journey to freedom? While they were leaving behind a terrible situation, they were still leaving behind everything they had ever known -  risking their lives, setting out on a journey that had no set route, and putting an immense amount of trust in their partners in the Underground Railroad to help to keep them safe. Not to mention, the anxiety they must have had about forging a new life.

Tricia suggests helping your students understand the gravity of the slaves' situation by having them relive it. Selecting a location that her kiddos were familiar with {but had never had to find their way to on their own}, Tricia provided her students with verbal directions and a map, then divided them into two groups and set them loose, encouraging them to work together to find their way to the selected meeting location. {Each group was supervised, of course!}

To read about how her students did and the lessons that they learned along the way, be sure to visit Adventures in Mommydom! While it may be a bit more challenging to set up this activity at school, we think it would offer a valuable lesson and a great way to connect with history!