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January 24, 2020 · Leave a Comment

All About Martin Luther King, Jr: Teaching Ideas and Activities

Books on Friendship· Children's Books· Classroom Community· Classroom Decoration· craft· Pictures Books

Disclosure: Some of the links are affiliated links, meaning that I will earn a commission if you click through the links and make a purchase.

One of the most poignant holidays that we celebrate in our classroom is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Day. While it is so important to teach young students of Dr. King’s life and his work, I must admit that it is also one of the hardest lessons to teach.

Although I truly believe in teaching history authentically with as much honesty as we can while also appropriate for our students’ age, explaining about segregation, discrimination, boycotts, strikes, and assassination are very difficult subjects to cover in the primary classroom. Not only do these concepts may seem very abstract to our students, they may also be confusing and foreign to them.

However, it is also important to have discussions about these topics and encourage students to notice and celebrate the progress that our country has made and that they too can participate in this ongoing progress.

Below are some ideas to teach about MLK Jr. authentically for the primary classroom!

Read about him! -There are so many great Children’s books about MLK, Jr. that truly give insights to his life and work. They also do a wonderful job covering difficult topics that you may find hard to explain to your students. Below are my top 5! Click to the links to purchase them for your classroom!

A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr.

National Geographic Readers: Martin Luther King, Jr

Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I Have a Dream

My Daddy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ask QUESTIONS!-Encourage your students to ask questions and record them on an anchor chart with stickies! As the students find answers to their questions, encourage them to share their findings and record them on different colored stickies to show evidence of learning!

WRITE about Dr. King!- The best way for students to synthesize their learning is to write about Dr. King. Have simple sentence stems ready like these below and encourage your students to help fill them in!

Integrate a CRAFTIVITY!- One of the biggest motivators for my students to write is when I pair a writing activity with a craft! Not only do they get excited to complete it, their work also significantly improves because of their excitement! Here are our MLK, Jrs at their podiums!

Click on the image above to grab this craftivity now!

Promote Kindness & Friendship! – Keep the celebration of Dr. King’s life going all year long by promoting kindness and friendship! Nothing makes the learning more authentic than being able to create an action plan together that promotes tolerance, kindness, and friendship! Below are some resources to do just that! Happy Teaching!

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Hello There!

My name is Ha. I am a Primary STEM teacher from Texas, a passionate educator of little ones, a teacher-author of interactive educational resources, a lover of Makerspace and STEM, a mother to two, a wife to my high school sweetheart and a forever learner. Welcome to my site!

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happydaysinfirstgrade

🍎 Primary STEM Teacher
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Ha - Teacher Crafter Traveler
Today’s #teachertraveltuesday takes me back 6 su Today’s #teachertraveltuesday takes me back 6 summers ago when we took our lil’ man on a trip to Canada! 🇨🇦 

Apparently, we were more amused and impressed by Niagara Falls than him. 🤣

Have you been? ✈️
The best way to a teacher’s heart is with coffee The best way to a teacher’s heart is with coffee and easy gift ideas. ☕️ 🛍 At least for me, that is. 🤣

Double tap if you love coffee too! Link in bio for this Valentine Gift tag and snag up the bundle for 120 tags for the entire year to save! 💕 Bit.ly/FebruaryGiftTags
Nothing makes my heart happier than an organized c Nothing makes my heart happier than an organized classroom. ♥️

Having an organized and tidy space where everything that I need has its own space, frees me up to do the important things like teaching and meeting in small groups with my firsties. 🍎📚

I also love how the kids know where to get supplies when they need them- no questions asked. 

Plus, it also gives them pride, comfort, and ownership in up-keeping our learning space together.
🥰

If you need ways to organize your classroom, I have bundled these products together for extra savings. 

Link in bio to grab them now. http://bit.ly/RusticShiplapDecorBundle
When Cupid’s arrows glow in the dark, who wouldn When Cupid’s arrows glow in the dark, who wouldn’t want to shoot them, right?! 💘 🥰

I love how hot gluing these heart confetti to little glow sticks made these little Valentine presents even more fun and festive!!! 🥰

Link in bio for this Valentine Gift tag and snag up the bundle for 120 tags for the entire year to save! 💕 Bit.ly/FebruaryGiftTags
We’re about to kickstart our next Writing and Re We’re about to kickstart our next Writing and Reading unit on American inventors. We usually start out with male inventors, then Asian-American, Hispanic, and women inventors too!!!! 🤩🥳🥰✏️📚

When planning, I try to be very intentional by including a list of diverse inventors. I want my students to learn, be inspired, but most importantly feel represented.

After learning about both female and male American inventors, I then provide them with another list of diverse inventors that are not as well known. From this list, they choose one to do their Hole-in-Poster project. 

It’s one of my favorite projects and always makes my heart so happy! Swipe to see more and check out my lil’ man’s project when he was in first grade! 

Link in bio to grab the signs and printables. 📚✨

https://bit.ly/32ev4BM
Next week will be our 21st week of school and 18th Next week will be our 21st week of school and 18th week of in-person school. 

Our first three weeks were virtual and then it’s been in-person since. 

Due to our numbers, one teacher was able to stay remote while the rest of the team went in-person.

I had so many feelings as I welcomed the kids back to school, but I knew in my heart that teaching in-person was my JAM and for those  kids who were going back, they needed me and our little space so so much. ♥️

While I came back in-person, my own kids were blessed enough to stay home with daddy. The truth is, they had good days learning remotely, they also had some really hard days and poor daddy tried his best while working from home. 😭👨🏻‍💻

So after much deliberation and praying, our kids are now back in-person with face masks during school hours and  have been doing so so well. 

We are so grateful that they are being loved on and cared for by their amazing teachers, who are also my sweet friends, and getting to know more friends in their class! 

Plus, they are thrilled to hang out in my classroom before and after school again. 🤣🤩 #teacherskids

Are you still virtual or are you back in-person? 🍎
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