Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.

Today I got to introduce the kids to Martin Luther King Jr. (Easily confused with Barack Obama in the minds of a 5 year old. ) After we established that the picture I showed them was of a man named MLK Jr., not our current president, we were on our way!
We listened to an informational book about MLK Jr. on bookflix. After that, we talked about the things he did and what made him so special.  We know that he worked very hard to make sure ALL people were treated fairly and that no matter what we look like, we have the right to have the same privileges as everyone else.  We did a guided drawing of MLK Jr. and wrote the words “Thank you” on top in appreciation of all that he did.
   
Here are the things the kids remembered about MLK Jr. :
                                   

In the afternoon, we watched a short video that showed the events of MLK Jr.’s life.  Then, we took a virtual tour of his house growing up! The students were able to see how different houses looked back then from what we have now.   If you want to take a look, here is the website:
http://www.nps.gov/features/malu/feat0001/BirthHomeTour/porch.html
Our final activity today was something I felt the kids could relate more to in regards to this topic.  I hid a different color crayon at each child’s table spot.  Once they found it, they knew that was the color of crayon that represented them.  I read the story, The Crayon Box That Talked, by Shane DeRolf. It is about crayons in a crayon box that don’t get along because they look different from each other.  Someone buys the crayon box and uses all the colors to draw a beautiful picture.  The crayons are able to see how beautiful it is and that all the different colored crayons were needed to make the picture, there is not one more special than another.  As I was reading, I had the students come up to our blank canvas if their crayon was called and draw using their color.  This is what they created:
                               
The kids each colored a crayon the color that represented them and then drew a picture of themselves in the middle.  They are so cute and I think the students really understood that each of us are special and unique and we all deserve to be treated the same!
                                    
Thank you to Martin Luther King, Jr. for helping us remember these very important words.