Rosa Parks Day Bus Craft

Hello! In case you didn’t know, Rosa Parks Day is on Saturday, February 4th, her birthday. In Ohio and Oregon it is celebrated on the day she was arrested, December 1. It’s a great time to teach kids about her legacy, and an important part of our country’s history. Today I’m sharing this Rosa Parks Day bus craft to help your kids have some hands on fun in their learning. Plus, this craft is historically very close to the colors and design of the bus Rosa Parks actually rode on.

For more teaching resources about this remarkable woman, check out our Rosa Parks printables and Black History Month poems.

Supplies:

• A box! I used an empty packing box from a toy, but you could use a pasta box or any box that is long and rectangular.
• Black paper.
• Paint. You’ll need white, yellow, orange, and green.
• Two paintbrushes. One large and one small.
• Glue stick, glue runner, hot glue, or tape.
• Pencil.
• Gel pen. This can be white, silver, or yellow. Anything that can write on black paper will work.

We’re going to start off by gluing or taping shut any open flaps, so we have a solid rectangular box.

Next, take a pencil and draw a line horizontally around the exact middle of your box. Now it’s divided into two long sections. Take the top section, and draw another horizontal line dividing that in half. So you’ll have two small sections on the top half, and one section on the bottom half. These are just marks to help us paint, so don’t worry if they’re not perfect.

For the bottom half of the box/bus, we want a bright macaroni and cheese color. So I mixed a bright orange  with lemon yellow to get the right shade. You’ll want to paint several thin layers so the cardboard doesn’t absorb too much paint. It took about three layers per color to paint this box. Look down in the tutorial a bit, and you can keep busy while the paint is drying working on other parts of the bus.

When all the orange paint is dry enough to touch, go ahead and add your middle stripe of green and then your top stripe of white. These are the same colors that the actual bus Rosa Parks rode on was painted.

Now let’s work on the details! I can’t give you exact measurements, because it’s going to depend on the size of your bus. So, you’re going to want to cut out two large rectangles for bus doors; a thin, long rectangle for the bus sign; a big wide rectangle for the front windshield, and a handful of small rectangles for the side windows. Adjust the size to match the size of your bus. Draw a line down the center of your two door rectangles, and label the front bus sign with Cleveland Ave.

For wheels, use any circular object that works well for the size of your bus and trace out as many wheels as you need. I used the bottom of a paint bottle.

Take your small paintbrush and paint white circles in the middle of your wheels to make hubcaps.

Glue your bus sign and front windshield to the front of your bus.

On the side, glue a window on either side with a wheel below it, then a front door and a back door. Fill in the middle with as many windows as you can fit.

You’re all done! I hope you have fun making this Rosa Parks Day Bus Craft!