Prepping for MLK Day and Black History Month

Hey all!  

{poor sad little canoe, waiting for summer}

It's winter wonderland here!  It looks pretty from the inside looking out (as I sip some yummy tea) - not so pretty when your walking through it with a gym bag on one shoulder, diaper bag on the other, and carrying a 10 month old squirmy little girl walking into the Y. (as was the scene this morning as I went into the Y to teach my BODYPump strength training class.)

But now that I'm cozy inside, and said little girl is currently napping, I'm ready to sit down and share with you some of my favorite resources for MLK Day and Black History Month.

I know many of you have off on the actual day (next Monday), but here are a few activities you might want to throw into your plans this week to mix things up a bit.

Before I did any games or activities with my students on MLK or Black History Month, I always wanted to make sure that they had the proper background knowledge.

I found these book titles to be great resources:

{you can see more details about each book by clicking on the titles.}

Once the kiddos had a better understanding, then I introduced the following activities that they could explore individually, in partners, or in small groups:

Here are some fun centers, games, and activities that you can have your students rotate through:

The packet includes:

a reader's theater script

a student-made book template

vocabulary word games

a primary source activity

a research project on important African American historical figures

a peace wall display

printable activity sheets

Check out the details here.

Also, If you head over to my holiday games page and scroll down to the MLK section, you'll find a Tic-Tac-Toe board that students complete as they learn different things about MLK.

And finally, after a fun week of learning about MLK or at some point during Black History Month, we typically watched this cute animated movie called Our Friend Martin.

The movie works as a great Fun Friday activity.

Hopefully this gives you some fun games and ideas for prepping for MLK/Black History Month.  If you'd like a printable version with all of the above activities (plus more!) you can click on the picture below and store in your files!

Enjoy!

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