It's a little late, but... {update}

Ever feel like there just isn't enough time in the day? We apologize that this post wasn't up earlier, but it was a crazy 3 day weekend. One of our mini-fanatics had a 2nd birthday party this weekend (which we will post about later with some fun ideas and stuff to share) and it took up the whole weekend. But, we are focusing on Martin Luther King this week, so we thought better late than never. Use it now, or save it for next year. We begin by reading several books, but these are our a few of our favorites.
Our school district belongs to a database of educational movies called Learn 360, where we found a video version of Martin's Big Words made by Scholastic, which was incredibly powerful to watch. Michael Clark Duncan narrates it, and his voice does such an amazing job recreating this story. We also found it on You Tube, although the quality isn't quite as good, but still worth watching. Find the video {HERE}.

After reading about the March on Washington, and the "I have a dream" speech, we like to show a little clip of the speech, so that the kids can hear how powerful Martin's voice was. Here's a few links to watch.

"I Have a Dream" clip

Entire "I Have a Dream" speech

We then do this great activity with our firsties. We found this somewhere last year, and couldn't find it again this year, so if you know where it came from, please let us know, and we can give credit and include a link to it. This is great for reinforcing positive behaviors that we'd like to see in our students.
Next we talk about Martin's dreams, and have the kids tell us MLK's dream in their own words, which is always so sweet. We haven't done it yet, so don't have any to share. The kids also write a dream that they have for the world, and every year these are just priceless! We mount these to a 12x18 piece of construction paper, and include the craftivity from TLC Lessons.


Next we do this reading, and fill in the missing words to really see if the kids have understood the basics of Martin Luther King. We then finish up by having the kiddos fill out the MLK 4-square sheet.

Click {HERE} to download these activities.
Update: Oops! There was an error in the first pack. Re-download to get the correct version!

We also thought that now would be a great time to do one of our favorite writing activities. We begin by reading this fabulous book, The Colors of Us.

We then go to Home Depot, or Lowes or any paint store, and collect a bunch of those paint sample cards, mostly in browns, oranges, and whites. You want to get the ones that have several shades on each card. We then cut those up, so that each rectangle is one color. You know how paint colors have the most incredible names? Like indian summer, or paradise island. We have the kids do this writing activity where they pick a shade that they think is closest to their skin color (which is often hilarious seeing what their version of the color of their skin is), and then write it. For instance, "I am the color of cornsilk. It makes me feel ________." The kids draw a self portrait using the multi-cultural crayons, and glue on their paint sample. We then put them all together to create a class book called "The Colors of Us." It always turns out so cute! We can't wait to post pictures after we've done it, hopefully later this week.

Thanks for sticking with us, we know it was a long post tonight! We are busy working on our next units {snowmen and space} which hopefully will be done by the weekend. Hope ya'll have a great rest of the week!

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.