Martin Luther King Jr. Activities

Today we remember and celebrate the memory of a great leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We also get to have a wonderful day to sleep in a little longer, create things for our classrooms, organize our lives and time to reflect. I spent part of last week, educating my sweet students about MLK. I wanted them to know why they were getting a day off from school and the importance of MLK's life to our country. I created a packet of activities to use with my kiddos: Martin Luther King Jr. Activities 

We started our week with a story about Martin Luther King Jr. from National Geographic Kids and used the vocabulary cards from my packet to help with comprehension and understanding. We followed up with a vocabulary review page that we used in our ELA interactive notebooks. 

As we were reading about MLK's life, we created a classroom timeline of his life. I chose to use the premade timeline in my packet this year, due to time constraints. However, there are also blank templates in the packet you can use to have your students make the timeline themselves.

We finished the week by making a paper bag book of MKL's life. The kids loved this activity and it was meaningful because they were in the process of learning about his life. I prepped and stapled the paper bags ahead of time for the kids. They spent time coloring and cutting the parts. Then, as a whole group we assembled the books step-by-step so there was little room for error.

The kids were so excited to take their books home and start sharing their new found knowledge with their families. 

We are going to continue our MLK activities this coming week too. We just didn't have enough time last week to fit it all in. Can't wait to show you what we are up to. 

Hope you love this freebie and can use it with your students! Enjoy!