Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Activities

Since Martin Luther King Jr. day is coming up, I'm taking this week to talk about MLK Jr. in my history class. I figured I'd share my plans and ideas with you now so you can use them too! Be prepared to see a lot of TPT freebies that I found and loved! :)

First, you have to check out this YouTube video called "Martin Luther had a Dream" sung to Nelly's "Just a Dream." My students kept asking to watch it again. It might become a daily thing as we continue to talk about him! It's pretty catchy.

 

There is an awesome Brain Pop video on Martin Luther King Jr - and it's a free one! I love Brain Pop :) I usually use Brain Pop Jr. with the levels of students I have in my history class - but I just paused it frequently and discussed various parts of the video so it worked well.

I used the timeline worksheet found in Laura Candler's TPT freebie of MLK Jr. worksheets to go along with this Brain Pop video.  As we watched the video we would stop it as soon as we heard a date and then filled in the correct box. I wrote these on the board as we found them - check out my talented illustrations!

After we were done with the video students cut out the squares the wrote on and put the dates in order. We then added boardmaker pictures to symbolize each major event in his life. You can see a few of the timelines below. Sorry, I can't seem to get this picture to rotate...

Here's another amazing TPT project on listening for details from K. Ratliff. I love these little cards. Each one has a statement about Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and then asks a very simple question based on the statement. Below is an example of the choices I give students after reading a question such as this one. Some students don't need choices at all...and other students I know they will just pick the last one I read.

 

The following activities are scheduled for the rest of this week. I'm excited to see how they go!

• I'm planning on using this Just/Unjust sorting activity. It will be interesting to see what my kids think is fair / not fair.
• Here's a 5 page book with an assessment page!  I really like this one because it has fill-in-the-blanks to complete the sentences on each page. I'll have some of my students write in the blanks and other students glue pictures with symbols in the right spots.
• I also love this Mini MLK Reader from Simply Kinder.

So, what are you doing for Martin Luther King Jr. Day?

Update! I've since added some MLK Jr activities to my TpT store!

You can find the activities pictured above included in the Black History biographies symbol supported (or easy reader) and as part of the January National Days.