3 Activities to Celebrate Women’s History Month

As you plan ways to teach Women’s History Month, engage your students in activities to better understand the challenges women have historically faced and continue to face. The tireless spirit of countless women has helped realize remarkable achievements and led the progress toward improved gender equality. These efforts offer rich lessons for students to explore in the classroom, and the 3 Activities to Celebrate Women’s History Month offers a place to start. Here are three teaching ideas from it to celebrate women’s contributions for Women’s History Month.

1 | Declaration of Sentiments Close Reading

Lead students through a close reading of the Declaration of Sentiments. Reflect on what it reveals about the lives of women in the 19^th century. Discuss what has changed since then and what remains the same. Take students even deeper by having them create their own declaration that identifies issues they feel are important to address today. The Declaration of Sentiments can be found HERE.

2 | Engage in the Suffrage Debate

For this activity, engage students in close readings of primary source documents from the late 19^th and early 20^th century. Docsteach.org has a wealth of documents that present both sides of the debate about women’s rights during this period. Visit the site and select a few that offer varying opinions. Use the documents as an opportunity to teach sourcing, perspective, and bias. They will also prompt rich discussion can abound about past perspectives on suffrage.

3 | Create a Mt. Rushmore of Women

Take a break from the body biography activities and one-pagers with this engaging and meaningful project. The Mt. Rushmore of Women project is a great way to have students research women and how they have contributed to society. Through it, students will also consider the purpose of monuments. First, have students select four women to highlight for their monument. Then, lead them to conduct research about their contributions to society. Finally, students can construct their own version of Mount Rushmore to honor women who have changed our world for the better. Whether the final project is a drawing or a 3D model, your students will find the work purposeful and creative, especially as they share their monument with their peers.

Are you interested in any or all of these unique activities? The Women’s History Month Project Bundle has everything you need to create meaningful lessons for your students. The bundle includes a thought-provoking anticipation activity and informational texts to help students deeply explore women’s influence throughout history to the present day.