As the kids and I have been studying black history, we’ve found so many incredible stories of great jazz musicians. I knew about all of these music pioneers, but learning about their lives and experiences has been so enlightening and it’s been a wonderful lesson for our children.
So I thought it would be nice to put what we’ve learned together into a printable black history unit study that’s all about jazz, bebop, and scat! We are very proud to announce the release of We Got Jazz! – Exploring the Pioneers of Scat, Bebop, and Swing! We Got Jazz! is a jazz unit study packed with jazz history, activities, and games for kids in grades K through fourth!
Read on to see how to get your copy! And, if you’re looking for more black history lessons for kids, don’t miss our African Kingdoms unit study for elementary students!
We Got Jazz! Black History Unit Study
My husband and I have always enjoyed the sounds of jazz and, while we knew about all of these famous musicians, we didn’t know much about how they got started making music or the challenges they faced during their careers.
As we started exploring these figures with the kids, we found out so many interesting things! And that’s what this black history unit study is designed to do for your family!
We Got Jazz! features five biography units of jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington!
In addition, there are additional activities for each artist, including listening activities, matching games, timelines, and an identification activity for younger learners!
Each artist has a five-page biography that’s written in kid-friendly language with pictures!
Each biography is followed by a question and answer review you can have the kids complete.

Kids can also complete copywork activities featuring quotes from the artists themselves.
There’s also a listening activity for each artist, with a link to one of their famous works, that encourages kids to interpret the music for themselves.
The unit study also contains additional activities, including timelines for each artist…
…and a hit record matching game to play at the end!
Plus, a full answer key!
Altogether, We Got Jazz! is packed with more than 130 pages of jazz unit studies for kids!
Scroll down to get your copy of our We Got Jazz! black history unit study!
Check out more black history learning activities below!
Get more ideas for teaching history on our Living History Pinterest board!
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To pick up your copy of We Got Jazz! – Exploring the Pioneers of Scat, Bebop, and Swing and learn more about how to use the jazz history facts workbook in your homeschool, click the image or the link below!
This is great! Sharing it!
Congratulations Selena. I’m looking forward to additional e-books (such as your unit on Africa) 🙂
Thanks Leigh! My Africa ebook will (hopefully) be finished this fall. 🙂
Thanks, just bought it! We’re doing end of the year portfolio work and I was wondering what to do next year for music-this will be something totally different for the kids and for me! I’m hoping to learn a lot, thanks!
Thanks so much for your support! I hope you and your kids love it! 🙂