6 Activities for Women's History Month Upper Elementary

When March rolls around, I love to spend time celebrating amazing and inspirational women in honor of Women’s History Month. But finding meaningful and engaging ways to weave Women’s History Month lessons and activities into your lesson plans can feel overwhelming, especially with testing season looming and spring fever beginning!

No worries! I can help!

You don’t need an elaborate lesson plan to make an impact. Simple, intentional activities can spark powerful conversations and inspire your students to learn more. Whether you have five minutes or a full lesson block, these five ideas will help you bring Women’s History Month to life in your upper elementary classroom.

How can I celebrate Women's History Month in my Upper Elementary Classroom?

1. Celebrate with a Women's History Month Bulletin Board

Nothing says celebration like a bulletin board dedicated to amazing women! Starting the first day of March, create a bulletin board highlighting women you want your students to learn about. I love Women's History Month posters that give just the right amount of information that will ignite students' curiosity to learn more! 

The Women's History Month Posters that I share include:

✔ Woman's name

✔ Years of her life

✔ Highlights of her life

✔ Meaningful Quote

By sharing just enough information, your students will want to learn more and begin asking questions about each woman and even other influential people. Each time your students walk by your bulletin board their curiosity will grow!

💡Teacher Tip: Not enough room to hang all 20 of these posters? Just share five each week of the month. By the end of the month, you will have shared all twenty.

2. Share a Women's History Month Slide Each Day

I love the ease of having slides prepped and ready for the entire month! 

When making slides to celebrate women, remember to give students just enough information to spark their curiosity! I love to sprinkle in general information designed to have students ask more questions about the focus woman of the slide. I also prep a question ahead of time to discuss. This helps save time and keep our discussions focused!

Ways to bring Women's History Slides into the classroom each day:

✔ Morning Meeting

✔ Transition Time

✔ After lunch/recess

✔ Kick off Social Studies Lesson

✔ End of the Day Wrap-up/Meeting

💡Teacher Tip: Pair up your students before sharing the slide to increase engagement in the discussion and question response. This will ensure that each student has time to share with someone.

3. Read a Women's History Month Picture Book

While there are so many amazing, must-read books to celebrate women, I have seven go-to picture books I love reading each year! My upper elementary students have always loved these sevenread-aloud and learn so much through our interactive read-aloud and follow-up activities. These inspirational books are must-reads!

 

Women's History Read-aloud books for March:

✔ Herstory: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World - by Katherine Halligan

✔ Shaking Things Up - by Susan Hood

✔ The Girl With a Mind for Math - by Julia Finley Mosca

✔ Helen's Big World - by Doreen Rapport

✔ Planting Stories - by Anika Aldamuy Denise

✔ Counting the Stars - by Lesa Cline-Ransome

✔ Shark Lady - by Jess Keating

Read more about each of these picture books to celebrate women and grab some fun and free activities to use with these books in this blog post HERE.

💡Teacher Tip: Invite students to find a few books that they want you to read during the month of March to celebrate Women's History Month! The kids always find amazing books in the school library and on Epic! Enlist their help and watch interest skyrocket! Don't forget to preview each book before reading to make sure they are appropriate for your specific cohort of students.

Grab the free printables to use with these books here:

4. Dive into Women's History Month Biography Reading

I am always trying to squeeze in more nonfiction reading, and using nonfiction passages about Women's History is a great way to do that!

Since testing season starts to pick up in March, using high-quality reading passages with text-dependent questions and responses is a great way to check all the boxes: social studies, nonfiction reading, and test prep. Plus, the more you read about famous women, the more students' curiosity grows!

💡Teacher Tip: Short on time for Women's History reading passages? Assign one passage to each group of students. After they complete the reading and response questions as a group, invite students to share what they learn! They can simply summarize it aloud or create a quick presentation. This ensures that students are exposed to a wide variety of influential women during Women's History Month.

5. Try a Woman Focused Biography Research Project 

Women's History Month is the perfect time to dive into nonfiction and informational research writing! 

We focus on biography research projects to meet information or informative writing standards. I love to have students pick a woman of their choice to research. However, I have my students "apply" to research someone. This helps students pick historic or monumental women in history, and not someone just famous. Plus, it limits repeats, which is so important when it comes time to share their biography research project.

💡Teacher Tip: Head here to read my 3 Must-Do Biography Research Tips to learn my step-by-step approach that helps students succeed! 

6. Get Creative with Student-Created Women's History Month Posters

These open-ended biography research project posters are a lifesaver! They are perfect for any biography research project and especially fun for celebrating Women's History Month. They are self-differentiating since students can add as much or as little information as you expect and assign. I love the mix of writing and illustration boxes, which is engaging for all levels of learners. These make amazing bulletin board displays for Women's History Month and the perfect addition to your studnets' writing portfolios!

💡Teacher Tip: Keep it simple! Allow students to add their own headers to the posters so that each poster is a unique project! 

The month of March is the perfect time to celebrate the achievements of inspirational women and spark meaningful discussions in your classroom. These easy to implement ideas will be a win with your students. With a mix of read-alouds, engaging posters and displays, and student-focused projects, you will excite, engage, and motivate your upper elementary students to learn as much as they can!

If you’re looking for ready-to-use resources to make planning even easier, I can help! Grab my Women’s History Month Posters, Slides, Reading Passages, and Bulletin Board Pack to bring these activities to life with no prep!

You will also love to read:

Coloring Activities and Tips for Upper Elementary

6 Picture Books to Celebrate Women's History Month

3 Must Try tips for Your Next Biography Project

8 Best Biography Picture Books for Upper Elementary

Save time, grab the Print & Go Women's History Pack!

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*affiliate links: “Think Grow Giggle is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.” (source: Section 5)

6 Women's History Month Picture Books for Upper Elementary

 

During the month of March, we are knee-deep in learning about biographies and writing biography research reports. I love reading aloud biography picture books about amazing women to tie in to both our biography project of the month and our weekly book talks.

While there are so many amazing books that celebrate women heroes, I have found that these 6 are my favorite to use with upper elementary students as we celebrate Women's History Month. I love that the students learn so much from these read-aloud books and get to meet amazing women that they may not of heard of. Inspiring stories such as these, truly do make an impact on students.

Read about each of my favorite read alouds to share to celebrate women who changed the world below and scoop up some fun and FREE activities to use with these books below.

Herstory: 50 Women and Girls Who Shook Up the World
Written by Katherine Halligan

I love this anthology that tells the stories of 50 amazing women! One of the great things about this book is that the contents page categorizes the biographies by topic, 10 amazing women for each topic. For example, one topic is "Think & Solve." This category has 10 biographies about women who solved problems like Marie Curie. Each biography in the book is two pages long, making it the perfect quick read aloud for each day of the month. Perfect to read during morning meeting or snack! From Coco Chanel to Anne Frank, this book has such a variety of women to read and learn about.

Shaking Things Up
Written by Susan Hood

This book is also an anthology, but each biographical piece is written in the form of a poem! I love using poetry for read alouds! Each poem is illustrated by a different female artist, making it a true celebration of women! I especially love that these poems celebrate young women and girls as they fight and act with bravery to change the world! Complete with a timeline at the front of the book and a small bio for each poem, this book will keep students engaged and allow you to share about 14 amazing women in a short amount of time! Follow up this book by having your students write their own bio poems celebrating who they are and their accomplishments!

The Girl With a Mind for Math
Written by Julia Finley Mosca

This book tells the story of  Raye Montague, an engineer who is credited with changing the course of ship design forever. She was an amazing mathematician who worked for the US Navy achieving amazing accomplishments throughout her life. I love that this story connects women to mathematics, engineering, and the US Military. Written in rhyme this book is fun to read and informative!

Helen's Big World: The Life of Helen Keller
Written by Doreen Rappaport

This is one book that I truly look forward to reading each and every year! I have driven by her beautiful home in Connecticut on my way to teach each morning and each time I would get a huge rush of inspiration. (See her home in CT HERE) The story of Helen Keller is one that I am in awe of and love sharing with the kids. This picture book does a wonderful job of bringing her story to life, both the struggles and accomplishments, through engaging text and beautiful illustrations. The kids love to see the sign language chart at the end of the book, too!

Planting Seeds: The Life of Librarian & Storyteller Pura Belpre
Written by Anika Aldamuy Denise

Celebrating women of all races and ethnicities is a must, not just during Women's History Month, but all year long! This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of Pura Belpre, the first Puerto Rican librarian in New York City. She was a multi-bilingual storyteller who shared stories, legends, and her own tales that she wrote herself.  This book truly celebrates women, storytelling, books, and the power of libraries. I especially love the author's note at the end that tells more about Pura's life.

Counting the Stars: The Story of Katherine Johnson, NASA Mathematician
Written by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Counting the Stars tells the incredible story of the brilliant Katherine Johnson who became a NASA scientist. At a young age, Katherine loved counting and stars. Born during a time when going into space seemed impossible, Katherine dreamed the unimaginable. She skipped grades in school and was able to solve any mathematical problem, often times just in her head! Katherine, was the only woman who joined teams of men at NASA that worked together to launch satellites and space crafts.  This is a truly inspirational story!

Have more time and want to share even more amazing books with your students? Try one of these:

Other favorite titles:

• Shark Lady: The True Story of Eugenie Clark written by Jess Keating
• Dinosaur Lady written by Linda Skeers
• What Miss Mitchel Saw written by Hayley Barrett
• Dancing Hands How Teresa Carreno Played the Piano for President Lincoln written by Margarita Engle
• Breaking the Ice: Story of the First Woman to Play in the NHL written by Angie Bullaro
• Mary Wears What She Wants written by Keith Negley

Want to mix up your read-aloud block with something different? 

Share this video of the read-aloud of the book The House that Jane Built by Tanya Lee Stone about Jane Addams, the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

• Storyline Online The House that Jane Built by Tanya Lee Stone

When it comes to engaging students in biography and nonfiction reading activities, don't overlook the power of an amazing informational picture book! These books about these amazing women can be read any day, not just during March for Women's History Month!

Looking for Women's History Month Activities

?
Try these print and digital reading passages!

GRAB the FREE activities from this post:

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*affiliate links: “Think Grow Giggle is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.” (source: Section 5)