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Learn about Rosa Parks

By Suzie Hunt - 2 Jan 2019

February 4th is the birthday of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. Learn more about this inspiring woman with our exciting and engaging planning.

Rosa Parks played a pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott, and her act of defiance became an iconic moment in the Civil Rights movement. Introduce key stage 1 children to this important figure with our cross-curricular topic about activists, and study biographies of Rosa Parks in Year 4 with our English planning focussed around narratives of liberation.

Rosa Parks the Activist - Lesson Planning for KS1

Key stage 1 children learn about the story of Rosa Parks and empathise with her situation; was she just tired? Or was she tired of unfairness? Session one of our activists topic block about Rosa Parks can be used as a standalone lesson to explore the life of this famous activist and understand the global significance of her story.

Alternatively, use it as a jumping off point into an exploration of activism by comparing and contrasting Rosa Parks with Malala Yousafzai and then developing your own classroom campaign against injustice.

Explore our Activists topic block for Key Stage 1.

Narratives of Liberation - Year 4 English Planning

In our English block about recounts, Year 4 children explore biographies from the civil rights movement. In Units 3 and 4 children read and discuss Who was Rosa Parks? by Yona Zeldis McDonough and Little People, Big dreams: Rosa Parks by Lisbeth Kaiser.

Draw a time line of Rosa Parks’ life and discuss how one event came to define her. Discuss the effectiveness of the boycott. Model the opening of a postcard from a child at the time of the boycott, to a relation or friend, giving a short account of events. Integrated grammar teaching covers apostrophes and paragraphs.

Explore our Narratives of Liberation block for Year 4.