Last year on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I was home from work with Carter. I wanted to do something to celebrate the day and honor Martin's legacy so I pulled up his "I Have A Dream" speech on youtube and we listened to it together. After that experience I knew I wanted to expose Carter to more this year through a weekly learning theme. I started with Martin Luther King, Jr and then branched out to the civil rights movement and more on Carter's level. Then we spent most of our time on topics that were more on Carter's level by focusing on community service and acceptance following Martin's example. I know Carter isn't old enough to really understand these concepts, but it's all about exposure at this point. I love discovering new books on specific topics which I was also able to do with this learning theme.
Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. I have updated our objectives from the original ones we focused on because Carter mastered those skills. I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives. Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:
- Take turns in a simple game.
- Understand the meaning of mine, his, hers.
- Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature). Since Carter was doing so well sorting by shape and color I already started having him sort by other features.
- String beads or other objects.
- Count to 3 and understand what the numbers mean. Carter can count to 3, but we're still working on understanding what each number means.
- On Martin Luther King day we listened to the "I Have a Dream" speech on youtube just like last year. I also let Carter watch part of the video so he could see where Martin gave the speech. Then I showed him a picture of me, Uncie J, and Opa at the Lincoln Memorial by the engraving which is on the exact spot where Martin stood to give his speech.
- After reading quite a few books about Martin Luther King and how he helped others, I told Carter he can help others by doing chores around the house. Throughout the week he helped me with chores like putting laundry in the dryer, putting away dishes, cleaning up toys, and feeding the animals. He's always such a good little helper!
- Originally I had planned to take Carter to a nursing home by our hose to volunteer and visit with the residents. Then I started hearing about how bad the flu is this year and how many people have gotten sick even though they had the flu shot. It made me nervous to take Carter somewhere where he could get sick and where he could spread germs that may not be making him sick. I decided instead to have him color pictures that we will use to make Valentines that we can drop off for them to pass out to residents.
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| Coloring pictures to take to the nursing home. |
- This one was a bit above Carter's head but it was fun and related to the topic. I was also able to fit in some learning objectives as we did it. I had a brown paper bag and a white paper bag leftover from projects at school. I put the same 3 objects in both of the bags. First we talked about the color of the bag and then we pulled out each item and counted how many items were in the bags. Carter matched the objects from the brown bag with the objects from the white bag. Then I told him that even though the outside of the bags looked different, what they had inside them was exactly the same.
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| Putting the marker back in the bag. |
- To get more practice with stringing objects I printed pictures of a white hand, a black hand, and a heart. I hole punched each of the pictures and Carter strung them on a shoelace.
- We made a friendship wreath. I took 2 pieces of paper and folded them up so we could just trace one hand, but cut out 8 hands. I had Carter put his hand on the piece of paper and I traced his hand. We then colored the hands using a peach crayon and a brown crayon. We glued the hands around a circular piece of paper I cut out to make a wreath. Then we added a heart to the wreath. Before we made the wreath we read Global Baby Boys and Global Baby Girls. I talked to Carter about how the babies had different skin tones and then we started coloring the hands.
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| Coloring one of the hands with a brown crayon. |
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| Carter posing with his friendship wreath. |
- Carter and I played a game so he could practice taking turns and sharing. My Aunt Judy bought Carter this awesome dice game for Christmas. He absolutely loves it and it is a great way for him to practice waiting for his turn and sharing the die with others.
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| Playing his Roll & Play game with me. |
Special Snack:
- On Monday Carter and I baked a cake for Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. While we mixed the ingredients and poured the batter into the cake pans we listened to Martin's "I Have a Dream" speech. The beginning of the youtube video I chose shows people marching while singing "We shall overcome". Carter kept trying to sing like they did later while we were taking our bath. When we ate the cake I told Carter Martin Luther King would be 86 years old if he hadn't been shot when he was 39 years old. When Carter's older I plan to put 39 candles on the cake and have enough candles for the years he lost (for example, this year it would have been 47) so Carter can understand a little bit better how much of his life was taken away.
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| Mixing the cake. |
Make Believe:
- We read a few books about the March on Washington. Afterward Carter and I practiced marching. Then we went on a walk and I talked to him a little bit about how much longer the walk was for those who participated.
- I found a song here. It is sung to the tune of Old MacDonald and goes like this:
Dr. King had a dream
for P-E-A-C-E.
He wanted people to be friends
and live in harmony.
He had lots of love to share.
He spread kindness everywhere!
Dr. King had a dream
for P-E-A-C-E.
- We also read poems about Martin Luther King Jr that I had from teaching about him at school.
Field Trip/Interactive Experience:
- When I was searching online for activities celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in our area I found out we have a parade. Carter and I arrived an hour early thinking that would be plenty of time. We planned to go to the Cultural Center to check it out for a while and then head out to the parade route which went right by the center. Streets were already blocked off so we couldn't get to the Cultural Center and had to park far enough away that I decided not to walk all the way there. Carter enjoyed the parade and waved at everyone who went by, alternating hands as one got tired. He even blew kisses a few times. The highlight of the parade for him was seeing someone dressed as Elmo. He absolutely loved seeing Elmo and asked "Elmo go?" the entire rest of the parade.
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| Carter made a friend while waiting on the parade to start. |
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| Waving at the people in the parade. |
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| Watching the motorcycles. |
Books:
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| Jake driving a tractor across the books I set up to take a picture of. |
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| So Carter had to do it too! |
- Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport
- My Brother Martin by Christine King Farris
- The Dream of Martin Luther King by Faith Ringgold
- The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Johnny Ray Moore
- Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King by Jean Marzollo
- March On! by Christing King Farris
- Martin Luther King, Jr. by Pam Walker
- Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
- The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles
- A Sweet Smell of Roses by Angela Johnson
- We March by Shane Evans
- I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King
- The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
- Freedom Summer by Deborah Wiles
- Sit-in: How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down by Andrea Davis Pinkney
- This Is the Dream by Diane Zultone Shore
- He's Got the Whole World In His Hands by Kadir Nelson
- My Nose, Your Nose by Melanie Walsh- I keep coming back to this book, it has so many teaching points!
- It's Okay to Be Different by Todd Parr
- Different Just Like Me by Lori Mitchell
- Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
- What a Wonderful World by George Weiss
- The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
- If the World Were a Village by David J. Smith
- Global Baby Boys by Maya Ajmera
- Global Baby Girls by The Global Fund for Children
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