It’s common to create paper chains to count down the days until a favorite holiday or highly anticipated event. These chains are visual trackers that can help little ones grasp the concept of time. Recently, I saw where parents were creating paper chains for New Year, and I thought this would be a wonderful activity…
Continue reading "Count Down to New Year’s Craft" Kids
I’ve never been very good about keeping New Year’s resolutions. Life gets in the way, and promises that I’ve made to myself can no longer be kept for a variety of reasons. So, this year I’ve made “End of the Year Intentions” (leaving out the word “resolution”), with the vague starting point of around mid-December. This way, I…
Continue reading "Healthy Holidays: Start Your New Year Early" Adults
Each year the National Women’s History Project chooses a theme for Women’s History Month. This year’s theme is “Honoring Trailblazing Women in Labor and Business.” Over the last century, women saw much change and progress in many areas of their lives, but especially in employment. As men went off to war and women pursued higher…
Continue reading "Literary Links: Women’s History in the Work World" Adults
Tomorrow is a precious day for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere: tomorrow we mark the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year that, if you’re tuning in from mid-Missouri, will give us roughly 9 hours and 26 minutes of sunlight. Maybe it’s my Leo Sun 🦁 and Capricorn Rising 🐐 tendencies that…
Continue reading "s🌞lstice seas🌞n"
The magic of visual art lies in its ability to communicate in ways not possible through words. Much like music, art is a universal language that can rise above cultural barriers. African-American art, specifically, is full of examples of this transcendence. Art in the black community has been used to exorcise pain, to rejoice and…
Continue reading "In Appreciation of African-American Artists" Adults
When the first Kentucky Derby ran in May of 1875, 13 of the 15 jockeys were Black Americans. Oliver Lewis, a 19-year-old Black man rode the winning horse. The horse’s trainer Ansel Williamson had been born into slavery in the mid-19th century. In 1864, Williamson had been purchased by Robert Alexander, owner of Woodburn Stud…
Continue reading "Black History Month: Equestrian Edition" Adults
Books are often the first exposure children have to the broader world outside of their homes. I have spent much of the past few weeks thinking about these early reading experiences, especially as it relates to Black History Month, and I focused on two questions: How important are these early book choices, whether we are…
Continue reading "It’s Always a Good Time to Celebrate Black History" Kids
Here is a by-no-means-comprehensive list of things that I have no intention of doing this year: going keto, doing crossfit, reading “War and Peace,” giving up social media. If you have already lapsed with New Year’s resolution, the problem may not be with you. Many typical resolutions are so dry and joyless. The secret to…
Continue reading "(Better) New Year’s Resolutions" Adults
It’s common knowledge that during the American Civil War President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, legally freeing millions of African Americans who were enslaved in the Confederate states, on January 1, 1863. But the story did not simply end then; there was still much to accomplish around the nation in fully abolishing the 400-year-old system…
Continue reading "Celebrating Juneteenth" Adults
One of my favorite things about learning history is that it adds new dimension to the things I already enjoy, and this is especially true for food history. For example, I have always loved pumpkin pie, but it hits me differently knowing that I’m eating Sri Lankan tree bark mixed with a spicy root that…
Continue reading "Literary Links: Food History" Adults