Happy Birthday, Dr. King!

We began our study of Dr. King's contributions this week. I am always impressed and moved by the innocence that my students possess about the injustice of racism. They are aghast at the idea that someone could be judged by skin color (or any other trait that differentiates someone). My job is to present the information in a non-judgmental way, and let them come to their own conclusions. I love that they have little or no experience with such matters. It makes my heart smile and fills me with hope.

I used my Happy Birthday, Dr. King! kit (found here) to teach concepts about his life, philosophy and contributions. As luck would have it, my assistant principal came in to do an unannounced, drop-in observation. We had just been discussing that she is almost finished with her Ph.D in a discussion about Dr. King's degree. I hope she saw that as a real world connection! :-)


We also viewed Scholastic's webcast of Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey. It had a student audience of grades 3-5, but my second graders really enjoyed it. I downloaded the teacher resources to include some of the writing activities in my literacy block this next week. My kiddos were certainly interested in finishing the story that the two authors began in the webcast!

Have a great weekend!

Susan