Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Good morning and Happy Martin Luther King Day!!

Does anyone else find it super frustrating when you can't sleep in on your day off??  I was wide awake at 7am.  I guess my body knows it is Monday and was afraid I was late for work.  Grrrr.  Oh well, since I couldn't sleep, I did what any normal teacher would do on her day off--poured a cup of coffee and got to work!  :)

But before I go to work on some President's Day activities (coming soon to my TpT store) I thought I would share with you our week of MLK studies.

I know there are contradicting views, but I personally think it SO important to teach about MLK to my kinders.  However, it is a very touchy subject.  Not only trying to explain the racism, but trying to explain what 'assassinated' means and why someone would do that.....it is a sensitive subject all around.  I don't want to go into TOO much detail, yet I want them to understand the moral of the story and why MLK is so important to our history.


First, we started the week by reading a couple books that are actually geared toward early learners.  My First Biography and A Picture Book are my 2 favorites.  They explain the history in an easy to understand way.

We then read my printable reader of MLK and did the comprehension check that goes along with it.  Students LOVE 'proving' their answer by highlighting it in the text in the color the sheet tells them to.  The kinder version of using 'text-based' evidence.  :)

This takes very guided practice in the beginning but after doing several like this, most are very good and pretty independent at it.

We also watched this short Kid President video.  Who doesn't love Kid President???  He is too stinkin cute and makes more sense than a lot of us adults do sometimes!  ;)

After we had gathered all of our knowledge of MLK from our different sources, we created a Was/Had/Wanted chart.  (Usually on these types of charts, I use interactive writing and have the kids help.  However we were short on time, so I just had them tell me what to write.)

Next, we each recorded 3 facts we had learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. (using our chart as a reference).  They did a great job on these--I could really tell how much they had learned!

 

We then started making connections to MLK.  What dreams do you have?  We had a class discussion and brainstormed some dreams.  We then created this simple craftivity where they finish the prompt, color and cut MLK and glue together on a piece of construction paper.

This is probably my favorite MLK activity because I absolutely adore their answers.  Some are funny, typical 5 year old dreams (toys, vacations), and some tug at your heart strings with their sweet, innocent answers, such as these:

(Everyone be friends.)

 (People to be kind.)

And one of my sweet little girls had a very specific dream:

(To have 20 Shopkins.)     :)

These make an adorable bulletin board for all to see when they walk by our room!

We also made crowns, but with the craziness of Friday I forgot to snap a pic!  :(  Fortunately, there is always next year!  But of course I couldn't leave you without a freebie, so click here to download the crowns for free!  :)

All of these activities and lots more are part of my MLK pack.  Click here to check out the entire set!

I also just posted my Groundhog Day set with activities very similar to these.  I will be blogging about it soon, but click here to see more in the meantime!

I hope you all have a fabulous and well deserved day off!!