Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Since yesterday was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day I decided to do a little introduction for my girls. As I was looking for fun activities to do with them I realized how complex the whole story of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life really is, so I had to evaluate where to begin. I decided to start by discussing how everyone has hopes and dreams. I told them that yesterday has been set aside to celebrate a man named Martin Luther King, Jr. who had a dream that everyone would be treated nicely no matter what. We talked about ways to treat others nicely. K came up with keeping her hands to herself and using nice words. I was pretty impressed because I actually had no idea how this would go.

Then we moved on to talking a bit about hopes and dreams. I explained to them that hopes and dreams are things that you want to do as you get older. K told us that she wants hopes and dreams to become a doctor when she grows up. So, we decided to play doctor for a while. R wasn't too interested in all of this information and did not participate much in the conversation but gladly agreed to be the patient.

Then after their nap it was snack time. I had a chance to see a really cute demonstration on Pinterest using a brown egg and a white egg to talk about how although the outside looks different the inside is still the same. I didn't have any brown eggs, but really wanted to use this idea when I remembered that a teacher friend of mine used the same concept in her kindergarten classroom with M &Ms, which we always have on hand! I gave the girls each two M & Ms and R ate hers right away and begged for more, but K came up with some good ideas about how they were different. Hers were different shapes and colors, one had and M and one did not (it was on the bottom). Then I asked her to bite each one in half and tell me what the inside looked and tasted like and she responded "chocolate!". As they finished eating the snack size bag of M &Ms we discussed how people may be different colors, shapes, sizes, boy or girl, etc. but they are all the same inside and everyone has feelings and hopes and dreams!

I was really impressed with how interactive K was during all of the activities and it just solidified for me that homeschooling is the right choice. Those were the first "lessons" I had actually prepared and she was so responsive. I cannot wait to get started on talking about the color RED!! Hopefully I can find ways to keep R involved as well, since K already knows her colors.
Also, I have some many more ideas for celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s special day that I can not wait to try some of them out next year!