Martin Luther King Dreams – Patties Classroom

MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY

I have a black and white big book I read the kids every year near MLK’s birthday. It depicts real time pictures of how things were in the 50s in kid language, with pictures of Rosa Parks, signs of segregated bathrooms, schools and lunch counters, actual photos, and I ask over and over, “do you think this seems fair?” and I am always amazed how adamant the kids are that it is not. And I always wonder, “Why weren’t the leaders of the day not aware?”

After we read and discuss the pictures we try to come up with ideas of how we (the voice of 1) would also change the world for the better, like MLK did, without violence.

And once again I am always amazed how they come up with such wonderful ideas and thoughts. It is my favorite assignment of writing the entire year. It gives me hope for the future…sniff….sniff…

Being kind to animals was one theme that got repeated as well as keeping our world clean…..

Then we do a directed drawing creating a portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Red White and Blue

with the American flag in the background and some fireworks too. It always turns out so darling.

Here are some other books I have amassed through the years to share with the kids. We also save every Weekly Reader and Scholastic News on the subject I get, and we read those as a class for background knowledge…..

I never have to encourage more writing on this assignment. The kids just go at it. It is a very emotional topic even for little kids when they find out such a good, peaceful man was assassinated senselessly. Here is our hallway bulletin board. We add the blue poem at the top as a caption.

There is so much one voice can accomplish…..we learn this from Dr. King. I LOVE this one….so articulate….many had thoughts about cleaning up the environment and about gangs

And this one…..”I have something to say to the world!” It gives me hope for our leadership of tomorrow with little kids like this today…..

More books on Dr. King in Kid language. Click on any of them to order…..

Being treated fairly, not littering, being kind and helping the poor were common threads…..

No more violence or killing was another common thread. It almost breaks my heart that kids know so much about our world and some of the things we wish we could shelter them from…..

You will love reading these….I always do. I smile and I sniff through them all. What a great job I have. I honor MLK every year and thank him for making schools like mine better today. We all look around our multicultural classroom and we all know this is a great place to go to school. 😀 We are so lucky.

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