Hello MCC Families and Friends, 

Hope all is well as we come together to celebrate Black History Month. This year since we are not able to celebrate indoors, we are bringing the celebration outdoors, embracing all our city has to offer! 

We welcome you and your families to participate in the Early Childhood Black History Month Scavenger Hunt this Winter Break. Below is a list of family-friendly activities throughout the city celebrating Black history, culture, and art.  

Be well and stay well. 

Regards,

Marcia Callender 

Associate Director, Early Childhood   

As you visit each site, take a picture and send it to Marcia Callender, at [email protected]. The family that has enjoyed the most sites will be eligible to enter a raffle to win a special gift! (Pictures are for program view only, not public posting). In addition, please complete the checklist of what sites you visited this week here. On Monday, February 28, we will announce the winner of the raffle and give away individually packaged cups of banana pudding, a special sweet treat in recognition of Black History Month.  

1. New York Botanical Garden. Explore the botanical legacy of the African Diaspora and the influential contributions of Black Americans who are creating communities that foster representation, identity, and diversity in the arts, sciences, and society. Learn about the profound connection between plants and gardening to culture. 
2. Brooklyn Children’s Museum<. Join us for a week of reflection and future-forward fun inspired by the national celebration of peoples of the African Diaspora and Black History Month. Enjoy interactive performances by festival curator Àṣẹ Dance Theater Collective, a Genea-Djali workshop, storytelling inspired by the Crown Heights neighborhood, a quilting craft workshop, local eats, and so much more! 
3. Museum of Food and Culture. Explore some of the incredible stories of African Americans who have shaped our country’s culinary identity. African American food is American food. Black foodways have shaped much of what we farm, what we cook, what we drink, and where we eat. Come walk the fields, see the kitchens, meet the people, and enjoy to-go shoebox food tastings! 
4. The National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Visit the new exhibition “The Soul of Jazz: An American Adventure. The National Jazz Museum has partnered with Disney to bring this experience to Harlem. Inspired by Harlem’s rich history of Jazz that not only became an international sensation but a vehicle for social change and Disney and Pixar’s Soul. 
5. Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. The historic Sugar Hill neighborhood located in Harlem was once a popular place to live for wealthy and prominent Black Americans during the Harlem Renaissance. Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling is a cultural institution housing arts and education programs. It provides our culturally rich neighborhood with a space where children and their families can grow and learn about Sugar Hill and about the world at large, through intergenerational dialogue with artists, art and storytelling. 
6. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Explore art and music in the galleries while you look, move, and sing. This month’s theme explores the idea of Sankofa which means “to go back and get it” in the Twi language of Ghana, in celebration of Black History Month.  
7. CAMP: Mozart for Munchkins. Celebrating Black lives and the history of jazz with Alphonso Horne! This jazz performance will be sure to get you and your kids toasty and tapping their toes! This concert series is for lovers of jazzy brass, dancing, and bubbles.            
8. Smithsonian National Museum/African American Burial Ground. The African Burial Ground became a National Historic Landmark in 1993 and its rediscovery altered the understanding and scholarship surrounding enslavement and its contribution to constructing New York City. The Burial Ground dates from the middle 1630s to 1795. Currently, the burial ground is the nation’s earliest and largest African burial ground rediscovered in the United States. Visit and tour the visitor center, library, and bookstore or visit their website to learn more virtually. 
9. “I Belong Here…I Too Sing America” video. This short film captures the African American history through narratives from our MCC family. We invite you to watch the film with your family and answer these questions:

• Who danced with Arthur Mitchell, famed African American Choreographer and Founder of Dance Theater of Harlem? 
• Who wears a bracelet given to her by her grandmother? 
• Who is the teacher that started at MCC as a bookkeeper? 
• Who is Mavis Tucker’s grandson? 
• Who said “be proud of your lineage?”