Famous African Amerians - Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks, famed civil rights activist, showed amazing courage when she refused to surrender her bus seat to a white passenger. While Rosa has said that, "It was just a day like any other day", her personal act of bravery spurred an entire city to boycott racial segregation, forcing the city to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses, and helped spur efforts to end segregation of public facilities nationwide! Along with equality, Rosa fought for what she believed in and for what was right. This fine woman is a role model for all and someone you don't want to leave out of your plans for Black History Month! We found some great lessons that will help you teach your kiddos a bit more about Rosa Parks.
Connecting Through Literature
There are several books that will help you and your kiddos dig a little deeper into the life and story of Rosa Parks. Yona Zeldis McDonough's Who Was Rosa Parks? is a good book to share in small sections. The selection includes a brief summary of Rosa's life, as well as more in-depth sections on her childhood, marriage, and her infamous refusal to give up her bus seat and what happened afterward. While it offers lots of great information, for the younger crowd, we suggest picking and choosing brief sections/facts to share.
Aaron Reynolds' Back of the Bus, written from the perspective of a child riding the bus when Rosa refused to surrender her seat, will help your preschoolers connect with the story and is a must read! The lovely ladies over at Lesson Plan SOS put together a great activity to go along with the selection that focuses on the importance of visualization for reading comprehension. Not only will this exercise build early reading skills, it also facilitates group discussion at the end of the story.
Faith Ringgold's If A Bus Could Talk is also another great read! We found these adorable bus craftivities to go along with the selection over at Learning with Mrs. Parker and thought they'd be a great way to help your kiddos keep track of their learning about Rosa Parks!
The Character of Rosa Parks
This vibrant poster created by Kim's kiddos over at The Adventures of a Kindergarten Teacher is a wonderful way to sum up your learning about Rosa Parks! Each student was invited to take a square, writing words to describe the historical leader who has been called 'the mother of the civil rights movement'. Leader, brave, courageous, and so many more come to mind! This is a great way to introduce/review character traits - adjectives that describe a person on the inside - and wrap your lesson!
Be sure to follow the links for these great resources and activities!
