Let the Children March is a story about the children that marched for civil rights in 1963. This book is a great way to start a unit on civil rights or to discuss important events in history. Students will love learning about the brave children that stood up and marched for their freedom. Let the Children March is an appropriate read aloud for elementary students. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Let the Children March tells the true story about children in Birmingham, Alabama that participated in a march for freedom. Dr. King met with black members of the community and told them he thought it was time for them to march. Many of the adults felt they could not march for they might lose their job and they had families to feed. The main characters in this book, a sister and brother, decided that it should be the children that march this time.
On the first day of the march, the children dressed in their best clothes. They were nervous about what would happen but knew they were fighting for their freedom. While marching the children faced great difficulty: dogs chased them, police sprayed them with waters, and many children were taken to jail.
Despite the jails being packed with children, each day more children joined the march. News about what was happening spread across the country and world. Eventually, Dr. King met with the white city leaders and they agreed to start desegregation.
This book is a great way to teach children about the impact the children’s march had on history.
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
While we love that this book is a great read aloud to teach about the civil rights movement, it can also be used to teach a variety of literacy concepts. Reads alouds are a great way to practice reading comprehension strategies, writing, and grammar skills. Take a look at some ideas for using this book in your classroom.
- Practice summarizing and retelling the story after you read as a class.
- Have students examine the cause and effect of events throughout the story.
- Integrate informational writing by having students write about the civil rights movement.
- Have students write poems about freedom.
- Teach a lesson on nouns and pronouns.
- Introduce students to contractions and homophones using examples from the book.
- Discuss the importance of perseverance with students.
NO-PREP PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES:
If you are looking for “ready to go” activities for the first day of school, be sure to check out the book companion. With it you’ll receive all of the following resources to align with this specific book:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
This book is a must have for your school or classroom library. Your students are going to love completing these activities for the book and you will be impressed with how much they learn. You will want to read this book to your class every year.
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- Martin’s Big Words by Doreen Rappaport
- All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold
- The Wall by Eve Bunting
- The Girl Who Thought In Pictures by Julia Finley Mosca
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
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