Martin Luther King in 1st Grade

January and February are PACKED with so many important days – New Years, MLK Day, 100th Day, Valentine’s Day, and President’s Day. Although there are so many special days, I do prioritize Martin Luther King Day during this busy season. Students love spending time learning about Martin’s life, and other African Americans positively impacting how we interact with one another.

Favorite Texts About Change the World

How can we change and impact the world around us? During our learning, we focus on a variety of options. Every person has special talents that can be leveraged to make our world better.

• Using Our Voices: Voice of Freedom, Say Something, No Voice Too Small
• With our Actions: The Man Who Built a Library, Let the Children March, This Is Your Time, Sometimes People March
• Sharing our Dreams: Martin’s Big Words, Mae Jemison: A Kid’s Guide to Reaching Your Dreams,

Starting out our unit with BrainPop Jr.’s free MLK video gives up a general overview and something to really dig into. Many of our 1st graders have never heard of Dr. King, so it’s the perfect introduction.

Since our theme time is so limited in the afternoon, I worked hard to integrate our social studies and science units into our core reading time. Through Scholastic Reading Club, I have guided reading sets of Martin Luther King Jr. from National Geographic Kids and Let’s Dream, Martin Luther King. These are books that work really well for my above-grade level 1st graders so they would be just-right for grade level 2nd graders.

Ways Dr. Martin Luther King Changed the World

Using a variety of books, we explore different ways to change the world. From marching to preaching to writing to inventing – we can make the world a better place doing a lot of different things.

During small groups, we also pull out of Scholastic News Magazines. I laminate these magazines each year, so my future classes can use them. This is the first magazine of the year that is written in a two-column format and my 1st graders feel like ‘real’ readers when they read this!

We March is a great follow-up to the Scholastic News magazine. It is a simple book centered around really powerful verbs – we prepared, we prayed, we sang, we marched. It’s perfect mentor text for a grammar mini-lesson!

Out of all the books on our shelf, when talking about MLK, Martin’s Big Words is one of my favorite books and a wonderful one to share with students. It shows students the power of words (which is a fantastic motivator for struggling writers) and opens the door to some awesome conversations. While reading aloud is my FAVORITE part of the day, there is a fantastic YouTube video that reads this story to students. I expect that this video would means so much more to students than if I read it 🙂 Then, at centers, I would include the book.

Writing About Our Learning

After so much reading and learning, as a class and individually my friends share what they are learning. These brainstorm webs become the perfect organizer holding our thinking about our learning. From these organizers, we start writing our first structured paragraphs together!

Learning about Martin Luther King Jr. is such a powerful unit for my friends and exposes them to SO much they idea about. Our 1st grade worlds become so much larger in the month of January. At this age, so many of my friends process their learning through writing.

Sharing How We Can Impact the World

After learning all about Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream, we love brainstorming our dreams for the world. These dreams make a perfect hallway display and a sweet writing piece for our 1st grade portfolio.

Well friends, how do you celebrate Martin Luther King Day? I’d loved to hear your ideas!