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Hilary Statum

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Primary Grades

January 13, 2018

MLK Jr Day Crafts for Preschool, Kindergarten, or First Grade Students

Do you celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day with your students? Today I’m sharing crafts, activities, printable, nonfiction resources, and more that I use with preschool, kindergarten, and first grade students to study this amazing man!

Hands up if you love studying Martin Luther King, Jr. with your students! I LOVE teaching my KINDERGARTENERS all about him.

I’ve heard teachers say that 5 year olds aren’t old enough to understand the Civil Rights Movement but I strongly disagree. In fact, I KNOW for a fact that’s not true.

I always start by gathering my students in a circle on the carpet. I tell them that we are going to learn about someone very important. We will learn about a man who changed the course of history. I share with them that some people think they are too little to understand what they will learn today, but I know differently.

We do a couple of Scholastic weekly readers. I don’t discuss his death. We do discuss how white people used to sit on the front of a bus and black people were told to sit on the back. We also talk about how children went to different schools and even drank from different water fountains. They are so passionate about the injustice of it all. They scream out, “That’s not fair!” and “God made us all the same!” It’s adorable & the perfect reminder of why I became a teacher.

This year I created a new resource that will teach your students all about MLK, Jr. I’ve included class books which will help them gain a strong understanding of this important man. You can grab it on TPT by clicking on one of the covers below.

The world wall cards & real-life photos are perfect to help you start a discussion with your students.

I LOVE how passionate my students get. We roll up our sleeves and look at all of the BEAUTIFUL skin tones in our classroom. We talk about how wonderful it is that we can all go to school together now. We discuss how brave MLK was to stand up for what he believes in. It always gives me chills.

We used pieces from the resource to make a few meaningful crafts. In the first picture in this post, you see the child pressing her finger in some paint (an ink pad would work great too). We strategically laid out the name sheet beside either a heart or dove on each child’s work area. Students were told to go around and write their name somewhere on every person’s sheet. When they finished, I let the students get out puzzles and called them over a couple at a time. I showed them how they would go around to every paper and put their fingerprint beside their name on the key & then about 5 times on each picture.

I can’t believe how beautiful these are! We added a couple of different quotes on the sides (in the resource!).

One of my students exclaimed, “The different colors represent the different colors of our skin.” I could have cried. Okay, I did a little. 🙂

They were so proud of these. We also made these adorable earth crafts. We started by painting the earths. While those dried, the students took their time coloring & cutting out their “dolls”. I loved how these turned out too.

I also used many of these pieces in the resource to talk with my Parent English Class about MLK, Jr. Most of them did not know what he was famous for. We had a GREAT discussion.

If you aren’t into the time-consuming crafts, there are some simple ones included as well – just click the picture below to see this resource in my TPT store.

I hope you enjoy this resource as much as my students and I did. It’s never too early to help your students understand that every skin tone is a beautiful one.

Happy Teaching & Mommy-ing this week friends!

 

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Pencils to Pigtails

18 hours ago

Pencils to Pigtails

Huge Julia Donaldson fan over here! 📚Since finding Room on the Broom and The Gruffalo, I’ve grabbed every book of hers I can.

This one is perfect for this time of year and the animated version is beautifully done and goes along with it word for word. It’s free on Amazon Prime!🙌🏽🎄🎁
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Pencils to Pigtails

2 days ago

Pencils to Pigtails

I highly recommend this magical mailbox 🎅🏽 from Target to up the engagement in your classroom this season!

The kids put a letter in, raise the flag, and whisper “Go to the North Pole!”. A little music plays and when they open the door, the letter has magically disappeared!

My girls were completely in awe. I’ll add a video in a bit for you to see their reactions.

I’m going to pair this with some 🎅🏽 letter writing practice pages from my resource on TPT and can’t wait to see the looks on my kindergarteners faces!
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Pencils to Pigtails

3 days ago

Pencils to Pigtails

Have you read The Animals’ Santa yet? We LOVE this book.

The kids really enjoy the mystery of it. We pause and ring chimes to really help understand the 🐇’s idea better and we use the clues to try and guess who the Animals’ Santa is.

Some of Jan Brett’s books get a little long for k students but this one is a pretty quick read. On a side note, I do still love the longer picture books like Jan Brett’s others & the Berenstain Bear books. We read them to build their listening stamina. Did you know picture book authors are encouraged to keep their books under 500 words now? Attention spans are not what they used to be thanks to all of this technology and our fast-paced world!
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Pencils to Pigtails

4 days ago

Pencils to Pigtails

Those 🌈 boxes from Michaels are perfect for task cards and mini erasers. Grab over 75 cards for less than $2 with the code CYBER19 through tonight!

www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Task-Cards-for-Mini-Erasers-5073361
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Pencils to Pigtails

5 days ago

Pencils to Pigtails

Poor 🎅🏽’s clothes got soaked with hot chocolate right before he was headed to board the 🛷! The kids love this STEM project and I have to say it’s one of my favorites too.

This resource has an adorable book to introduce the challenge, tons of writing practice, activities, crafts, and more. You’ll save 25% through tomorrow on TPT on all of my resources with the code CYBER19! You can follow the link in my profile to grab this one or grab it as part of a bundle.

Happy shopping! I have my cart loaded already!❤️
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Instagram post 2193267762741596659_4376240345 I’m a HUGE Julia Donaldson fan. 📚 Room on the Broom, The Gruffalo, and The Gruffalo’s Child have been some of my favorite books for years.

Since I found those, I’ve grabbed every book of hers I could find. Stick Man is definitely perfect for this time of year!

The book is adorable with a great message to it. There is an animated version that is so well done that goes along with it word for word. It’s included with Prime Membership! 🙌🏽🎄🎁
Instagram post 2192545939372515397_4376240345 I highly recommend this magical mailbox 🎅🏽 to up the engagement in your classroom this season! Swipe to see a little video demonstration.

The kids put a letter in, raise the flag, and whisper “Go to the North Pole!”. A little music plays and when they open the door, the letter has magically disappeared!

My girls were completely in awe. I’ll add a video to my stories for you to see their reactions.

I’m going to pair this with some letter writing practice pages from my resource and can’t wait to see the looks on my kindergarteners faces!
Instagram post 2191835885094661333_4376240345 Have you read The Animals’ Santa yet? We LOVE this book.

The kids really enjoy the mystery of it. We pause and ring chimes to really help understand the 🐇’s idea better and we use the clues to try and guess who the Animals’ Santa is.

Some of Jan Brett’s books get a little long for k students but this one is a pretty quick read. On a side note, I do still love the longer picture books like Jan Brett’s others & the Berenstain Bear books. We read them to build their listening stamina. Did you know picture book authors are encouraged to keep their books under 500 words now? Attention spans are not what they used to be thanks to all of this technology and our fast-paced world!
Instagram post 2191083080843151668_4376240345 Y’all! These boxes from @michaelsstores are perfect for storing seasonal task cards and mini erasers. We got them out today and the kids had so much fun working on these skills during small group time.

I’ve just added these to my TPT store. Since all products are 1/2 off the first 24 hours they are posted, you can snag over 75 task cards for less than $2 with the code CYBER19 through tonight. Follow the link in my profile to find them.

I just love the 🎅🏽 in these sets. Can you guess which one is my favorite? What do you use these boxes for? Let me know!
Instagram post 2190364853242621436_4376240345 Poor 🎅🏽’s clothes got soaked with hot chocolate right before he was headed to board the 🛷! The kids love this STEM project and I have to say it’s one of my favorites too.

This resource has an adorable book to introduce the challenge, tons of writing practice, activities, crafts, and more. You’ll save 25% through tomorrow with the code CYBER19! You can follow the link in my profile to grab this one or grab it as part of a bundle.

Happy shopping! I have my cart loaded already!❤️
Instagram post 2188001928204867938_4376240345 My annual Black Friday score! This is my 9th year of snagging these poinsettias for $1 a piece @homedepot .

When we return from Thanksgiving break, I read a book about how it is so much better to give than to receive. We have a discussion about this and the kids are told to think of someone who has impacted them this school year.

They write a card to the person and we all go marching down the hall with these poinsettias bigger than they are to personally deliver their gifts.

Hugs, tears, & laughing all ensue. The kids are always telling me how warm they feel and how it made their insides feel good.❤️ I love seeing the looks on the recipients faces too. The greeting cards we use are free downloads in my TPT store.

This is my favorite tradition with my students! I talked more about it in my stories today and added a swipe up link to the cards and a blog post I wrote a few years back. Have you tried this with your class yet? Let me know!
Instagram post 2187495120998609932_4376240345 My girls loved their 🦃 costumes so much they had to bring them out for the family thanksgiving! Aniston worked hard to make one for her sister so she was very pleased. However, we are not the best at taking pics. Swipe through to see some of what we go through to get a halfway decent one.🤪 Little known fact about me- I have NINE brothers and sisters! We are blessed to have a HUGE family and our get togethers are always bigger because we typically welcome lots of friends!

I hope you’ve had the BEST day with your family & friends! Happy Thanksgiving! 🍽🦃🍁
Instagram post 2185268223178757371_4376240345 🎯 Dollar Spot for the win! The girls & I had a lot of fun setting up a wintry scene for our kids when they return after thanksgiving! I know my students will be so excited.

So I’m curious... do you use sensory tables in your classroom? I teach kindergarten and they definitely aren’t used as much in K as they are in PreK.

I’m planning to make some resources for my kids to work on letter recognition, word building skills, reading comprehension, counting, etc to go with my sensory bins. Let me know if you need these resources to pair with the bins/tables too. It’s an easy way to ensure students are working on ELA or math standards and they are so engaged with things like this!

You can find out all the details about this bin and others I have planned for December in my stories today.
Instagram post 2182412462505350208_4376240345 You know what I love about STEM? It gives different kids a chance to shine. It also challenges some of your kids who usually get everything so easily.

My student teacher used the STEM idea from my Thanksgiving resource on TPT to have the kids make their dinner tables for an observation this week and I was so proud of the kids.

This is so easy to set up and the perfect ENGAGING activity for this crazy week before Thanksgiving! I’ll add a swipe up link in my stories. There are a couple of fun STEM challenges in there and lots more!

One more day for us! What about you?
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