Celebrate Black History Month with these inspirational freedom quilts! Your students will love that each square they design has a secret code. Help your students decode each message and discuss how it guided the slaves to freedom. Each quilted square will represent a journey of a brave individual who fought their way to be free in the underground railroads!
Search Google for the freedom quilt patterns. Each pattern represents a secret code that the slaves used to communicate. The code represented pathways to freedom. Have your students choose their favorite pattern. Cut the white construction paper into squares. I used a 6″x 6″ square. To help your students easily replicate the patterns in the quilt, you can have them fold square to mimic graph paper. I folded my square in half, then each end towards the middle crease. Rotate your square and repeat. You should now have 4 squares across and four squares down.
North Star
This first pattern represents the North Star. The message is to look to the sky to help you find your way. Follow the North Star for freedom in Canada. I had my kids choose any colors they liked. We used the twistable colored pencils for this freedom quilt square.
Sailboat
This pattern represents a boat. The message is that there were boats nearby or a body of water. For our sailboat we used oil pastels.
Bowtie or Hourglass
Another means of escape from slavery was to use the element of disguise. Change your clothes to appear to have a higher status or travel in disguise. We used colored drawing chalk for this quilted square.
Shoofly
A person that helped guide the slaves in the Underground Railroad was known as a shoofly. This person understood the quilt codes. The kids used erasable colored pencils for this freedom square. Each code has it’s own unique message to guide the slaves to freedom. Imagine how beautiful your quilt will turn out with each student contributing their very own freedom quilt square.