LET THE CHILDREN MARCH activities and lesson plan ideas

Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson tells the true story of children in Birmingham, Alabama that participated in a march for freedom. The digital and printable activities in this read-aloud resource make it easy for you to integrate literature-based learning into your classroom.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH:

◼️READING STRATEGIES

☐ cause and effect

☐ analyzing character

☐ summarize / retell

☐ plot | problem - solution

☐ sequencing

◼️SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ perseverance

◼️GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ nouns

☐ pronouns

☐ contractions  

☐ homophones

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT:

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 water, 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.

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables