At Connecticut Children’s, we proudly honor Black History Month with our team members, patients and their families. We do so by displaying signage in our hospital, providing educational resources to team members, sharing team member profiles and much more.
As a children’s hospital, we recognize that the month provides a great opportunity to teach children about Black history and we encourage families to try out new activities to build appreciation and allyship for others.
Here are some ideas to consider during this month and all year long:
- Take children on a virtual tour of websites dedicated to Black history. Here are some to consider: the National Park Service’s Black History Month website links to lots of other resources, the PBS Kids website offers information to help parents celebrate Black leaders with their kids, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture offers virtual gallery tours.
- Read children’s books written or illustrated by authors who are Black. You can find a list of recommendations on PBS.org. The School Library Journal also offers recommendations. In addition, Social Justice Books breaks down categories for early childhood, upper elementary, young adult and adult readers.
- Make kid-friendly arts and crafts in honor of the month. There are plenty of crafts you can make with your children to celebrate the month. Check out these ideas! Also, be sure to check out the Department of Defense’s Black History Month page to download a placemat or activity book to celebrate the month.
- For additional ideas, take a look at this article on Connecticut Children’s Growing Healthy Blog , which offers even more ideas for how you can honor the month with kids – from music, to virtual travel and much more. And this article features information on things you might not know about the month.
And here’s some background information on the Black History Month. America has honored the month every February since 1976, when it expanded from a weeklong recognition that began 50 years earlier. The month honors the history, culture and contributions of Black Americans in the United States in a variety of fields, including medicine and science. The month of February was selected for this recognition because it contains the birthdays of civil rights advocate Fredrick Douglass and former President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 that freed enslaved people across the country.