Happy Martin Luther King Day

I love Martin Luther King Day. While all the other kids in our area have the day off of school, my homeschooler announces to our pastor in front of church during children's message that homeschoolers never get days off. Good boy! Today is certainly not one that I want to take off. Celebrating an important historical figure and role model as Martin Luther King Jr. is something I want to concentrate on in our schooling. Today we read books about Martin Luther King. We took turns reading and listening. We learned a LOT of new vocabulary. Here are some of the titles I especially enjoy:

Center book title

You can tell Dr. King was an inspiring man by the art work he inspired people to create. The illustrations in these books are incredible. The Story of Ruby Bridges is a powerful one for young children. She was a very brave little first grader during a difficult time in the civil rights struggle. Matthew and Tilly is a great book for young ones. This story is the realization of Dr. King's dream. A little black girl and a little white boy are best friends, but it talks about friendship, anger and forgiveness. These are all very immediate topics for young children when the issue of segregation is thankfully so foreign to them. Martin Luther King day is the perfect opportunity to talk about the many shades of skin color and how we should be kind to everyone and get to know them without worrying about what they look like on the outside. These books are very applicable to our lives today.

My eight-year-old learned a lot of new vocabulary words today when we read the I Have a Dream speech. I'm sure he has heard some of them before, but you need multiple hearings to really cement new words into your vocabulary. Words like emancipation, poverty, prosperity, segregation, negro, manacles, divinity and reverend are difficult words that he will very likely not see again... until next year.

MLK timeline activity from the Mailbox