About Women

Next week’s read-aloud at the shelter in Anacostia is supposed to use Women’s History Month as its theme. I’m having a hard time coming up with an activity for this one.

Our kids range in age from 3 to 9 and don’t have long attention spans. We have generally used simple themes, like snow and valentines. Three-year-olds don’t even know what history is, for goodness sake!

With the help of Arlington Country Library, I do have 7 books which talk about prominent women in fairly simple language.

But then we are supposed to do something related to the theme as an activity. For example, when we talked about snow, we made snowflakes. On Valentines Day we made valentines and decorated cookies.

An Internet search for ideas turned up an interesting story about a courageous young woman named Bessie Coleman, who was the first African American woman to obtain a pilot’s license. She was born in 1892 in a small town in Texas. She actually learned French and went to France to study aviation after she was turned down repeatedly in this country. After only 7 months, she obtained her license and returned to the US where she became a barnstormer and an early advocate for women’s rights. She died in a tragic accident when she was but 34 years old.

Maybe the kids can draw Bessie’s plane or make a paper airplane to commemorate this young woman who made history.

If you have other ideas, please pass them along!