Martin Luther King Jr.

     I teach social studies to both first grades at HR and have come to realize that there are not a lot of fun resources or ideas out there.  So in hopes of helping any other social studies teachers out will post pictures and links of anything we do.  For MLK Day read Martin's Big Words and showed parts of his I have  dream speech.  We also discussed segregation and touched briefly on Rosa Parks.  I then had the kids color a school bus and put people of all colors in the windows in random order.  My kids made the picture of Martin that Cara showed on her blog.  Lastly they wrote about their dreams for their family, school and world.  I picked one and had them write in on this paper from Classroom Freebies.  

     I have to be honest and tell you all that this years lesson was a bit harder because my own sweet AJ is in the other first grade and I couldn't really use my normal example of "if things were still the same I couldn't be your teacher".  I have always found it hard to explain to sweet innocent faces that in our countries past people were not as accepting, but this year to have to look at my little girl and tell her that she wouldn't have been allowed to do many things she enjoys so much was even harder.  Thankfully, as has happened every year since I started at HR, the kids think it ridiculous pretty silly.  This year I have decided to make Black History Month more about celebrating African American accomplishments than history.  I still plan to talk about Ruby Bridges because its one of my favorite stories and think it is the perfect example of someone living Jesus's teachings, I mean really she stopped and prayed for all those people screaming at her!  Anyone else have good social studies ideas/lessons?