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Activities for Martin Luther King Day
Click
here to see our selection of Activities for Martin Luther King Day.
 Each
year, on the third Monday in January, citizens of the United States
honor the life and dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. Take advantage
of this opportunity to teach civil rights to your students, and
to emphasize the role of Dr. King. The Civil Rights Movement was
an important time in our history, and the children should be aware
of Dr. King’s legacy of tolerance, equality, and respect for
everyone.
Activities
for Martin Luther King Day:
· Mapping Martin Luther King Jr.(for grades: 3-8)
Students will discover the places in the life of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr, where his activism and passion made such a difference.
Use a variety of resources to learn about the life Martin Luther
King Jr. Create a U.S. map that shows where those places are and
what happened there. It is preferable to use a large map of the
US that all the children can work with—in addition to smaller
maps for each child.
Students can complete this activity for Martin Luther King Day
independently, in pairs, or in small groups.
First ask the children to point out cities they know were important
to the Civil Rights Movement and to Dr. King—after they have
named a few point out cities such as such as Atlanta, Georgia; Montgomery,
Alabama; Memphis, Tennessee; and Washington, D.C. etc. and why these
places are significant. Write the names of each location on the
board.
Then write the name of the location next to a star on the map.
Record on a separate Map Key, in this activity for Martin Luther
King Day, that includes a sentence or two explaining the importance
of that place.
Lastly, provide a time to display the maps to share with the class
what they learned.
Another Activity for Martin Luther King Day:
· Write Your Own "I Have a Dream" Speech (grades
K-12)
Have your students listen to King's famous "I Have a Dream"
speech.
Students will then use a fill-in-the-blanks work sheet to write
their speeches. These speeches will imitate the form and content
of the "I Have a Dream" speech.
Older students doing this Activity for Martin Luther King Day will
simply look at a copy of the speech and write their own without
the assistance of a worksheet, first discussing the structure of
the speech.
For such activities for Martin Luther King Day you will need the
following:
A recording of King's "I Have a Dream" speech:
A text version of the speech:
The "I Have a Dream Too!" work sheet (optional)
Explain to students that they are going to do activities for Martin
Luther King Day that concern Dr. King’s dream for the future—and
then think about their own dreams.
Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech
is very powerful, hearing it should create a certain measure of
excitement in your students.
Afterwards, the students present their speeches to their classmates.
If this activity for Martin Luther King Day was done in groups or
pairs and not individually, average the peer scores to come up with
each their final grades.
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