Today, I’m sharing Martin Luther King Day learning activities for Elementary aged students. January 15, is a day that’s dedicated to honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. He stood for equality, justice, and humanity. We studied about the fabulous civil rights leader through books and videos. Then, we compiled four great learning activities on Martin Luther King Jr in our notebook.
1) PICTORIAL INPUT CHART
Pictorial Input Chart is a learning strategy from Project Glad (CA). I absolutely loved using this strategy to increase vocabulary and introduce concepts in my classroom. Students had great success in acquiring and retaining information using this strategy. Usually, in the classroom, Input Charts are done on a big poster but in the home setting, the chart was done in a notebook.
HOW TO CREATE A PICTORIAL INPUT CHART?
- Sketch the image in the notebook ahead of time.
- During the time of the lesson, draw over the image in front of the child or students.
- Write down information regarding Martin Luther King as you read a book about him or from memory.
- The Pictorial Input Chart will serve as a resource for the student for later activities.
2) COGNITIVE CONTENT DICTIONARY
This is also another strategy from Project GLAD. I made some changes to make it adaptable for us at home.
HOW TO CREATE COGNITIVE CONTENT DICTIONARY
- Select words/vocabulary from the unit
- Make predictions about the definition from reading the sentence in context or use the root word.
- Write down final definitions and sketch something to help you remember the meaning.
- Vocabulary words we added to our Cognitive Content Dictionary are segregation, equality, justice, racism, orator, freedom, discrimination, boycott, protest, civil rights, and peace.
3) TIMELINE
Creating a timeline is great for kids in many ways. It helps kids understand chronology and make connections between historical events.
HOW TO CREATE A TIME LINE
- We chose to pick 10 main events of MLK’s life. So draw a line in the middle of the page. Then divide the line into 10 increments.
- And add the events in sequence as related to MLK’s life.
- Add some color to make the timeline more visually appealing.
4) WRITING
Of course, we couldn’t end the lesson without writing a narrative. So after much research about Martin Luther King, Jr, E wrote up a summary of his life. He used the Pictorial Input as a reference to write his summary.We also used this as a reference to draw Martin Luther King.
The boys gleaned a lot of information about Martin Luther King, Jr and were inspired by his non-violent approaches to end segregation and discrimination.
