Rosa Parks was a brave woman who worked hard her whole life to promote civil rights. She is best known for not giving up her seat on a bus to a white man. However, she had already been helping black people register to vote long before that. She was also instrumental in organizing the Montgomery Bus Boycott that immediately followed her arrest.
Learn all about her in this unit study and then have your children think about problems in their community they can help solve!
Grab the Who Was Rosa Parks? book, sign-up to receive the FREE printable unit study and then explore the other resources below!
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The Book about Rosa Parks
The Rosa Parks unit study is based upon Who Was Rosa Parks?. This book shares about Rosa’s childhood and how she became an activist for civil rights. Learn about many other civil rights activists and how they achieved their goals.
You could use this book as a read aloud or have 3rd-5th graders read it on their own. The book works well spread out over 3-5 days.
The Rosa Parks FREE Printable Unit Study
The printable unit study includes the following:
Notebooking pages about Rosa Parks’ life.
A timeline activity to chart Rosa Parks’ life and work.
Civil Rights Word Scramble: Unscramble words about the Civil Rights Movement
Compare and Contrast Activities: Compare the daily lives of African-Americans before and after the Civil Rights Movement.
A following direction activity that teaches US geography while sharing about Rosa Parks’ life.
Become an Activist: Two notebooking sheets to help you identify a problem to solve, research the problem, make a plan of action and then state whether your action was successful in solving the problem.
Videos about Rosa Parks
This short video will give your children a good introduction to Rosa Parks. (Approx. 5 min.)
Your children can research more about Rosa Parks at Ducksters.com.
Virtual Museum Tour
This video leads you through the Rosa Parks museum with some narration. (4 min.)
Learn about the Civil Rights Movement
An overview of the Civil Rights Movement for younger children (5 min.):
An overview of the Civil Rights Movement for older children (12 min.):
We Shall Overcome was the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement. Watch it performed here by the Morehouse College Glee Club. (4 min.):
You can learn more about Civil Rights over at Ducksters.
Become an Activist
In the free printable above, there are two notebooking sheets about identifying a problem in the world or your community and then coming up with a plan to help with that problem. Here is an inspiring video to get your kids started (Approx. 5 min.):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_pmoWmST8s
Other Resources and Activities
Learn about Civil Rights and geography with this Interactive Civil Rights Trail Map.
Research what it takes to register to vote in your state.
Read one of the books Rosa Parks wrote:
Other Resources
Great books about Rosa Parks for younger children:
Other Who Was… books about the Civil Rights Movement:
