Looking for ways to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with your children? Below I share a fun an easy activity to celebrate Dr. King’s legacy with your children.
When I was younger, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was not just a day off from school, but a day where I could turn on the TV and see documentary after documentary on the life of Dr. King. Today I turned on the TV in hopes to watch a suitable documentary with my kids and to my disappointment I couldn’t find anything scheduled. Our original plan was to go to the MLK day parade but the weather was cold and rainy and my daughter has been home with the flu since Friday.
Determined not to let the significance of today slide by my children, I decided to do an easy “lesson plan” on Dr. King. I remembered that we had the book, Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. so I decided to start with that. The book does an excellent job in portraying the philosophy and teachings of Dr. King in a way suitable for young children. I made us a nice breakfast as we started talking about today to get an idea of what the children had learned in school about the legacy of Dr. King.
When we sat around the table, I asked everyone to if they could share what they thought Dr. King did for us and what he taught us. My four year old, beaming with pride, said “Dr. King, Jr. taught us to love people!” My six year old said, “he taught us to do unto others as you want done unto you.” And my nine-year old, who was way too cool to be put through this exercise, said that Dr. King “died for rights of African-Americans” (as he rolled his eyes in complete boredom).
Determined not to let his sour mood ruin this teachable moment for my kids, I read the story to the kids. As I read the book, we talked about the what life was like for African-American’s back then. Oldest asked me if I remembered Dr. King and Rosa parks and I had to tell him that I wasn’t even born yet, ahem. We talked about segregation in schools, churches, and Rosa Parks. I could tell the kids were totally soaking in all the information even though this was not their first time learning about Dr. King. Slowly my nine-year old started asking a lot of questions and contributing to the conversation.
Following the book, I showed them a seven minute video from The Corporation for the National Day of Service. It is an excellent video that discusses the life of Dr. King and how MLK day is a day of service to recognize how Dr. King served our country. We listened to audio clips of Dr. King, an interview with Ruby Bridges, one of four young girls that segregated a public school in New Orleans at the age of six, and commentary from several civil rights leaders in our country. We then ended our lesson with a short clip from the documentary, Eyes on the Prize. Now this clip I had to censor a bit due to some of the violent scenes in it, however, I had to balance that with showing them a realistic portrait of life was like for African-Americans in the 1950’s. This was the part of our lesson that the kids began to really understand what Dr. King did for us. We talked about the “bullying” we saw in the movie, how we were happy that life today is different, and then we thanked Dr. King for his service to this country.
Bellies and minds full, the kids scrambled upstairs to their rooms talking about Dr. King.
These are the moments I live for.
This post was originally published 1/17/11 on MamaLaw.com
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