My little girls still have their ‘school’ today, but my kindergartner is off and we are still learning. I’ve been pinning and printing all morning. I sent my son downstairs to ask Alexa about MLK while I got dressed. I’ve pulled storybooks about Ruby Bridges and other people of color off our bookshelves, and they’re the stories we’re focusing on when we read today. We’re also listening to a killer Spotify playlist called ‘Black History Salute,’ and somehow it just got stuck on an old Michael Jackson album… 😉
We’re spending our day like this because today, maybe more than ever, it’s vitally important that we teach our kids about the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Watching a video reading of the book Martins Big Words
- A printable MLK, Jr. easy reader coloring booklet
- This is a video reading and the pictures from the book Martins Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a beautiful book, the video is well read, and both are a great way to introduce kids to MLK. This is probably my favorite of our MLK resources.
- ‘Black History Salute‘ Spotify playlist is really good as a whole, and I guarantee you’ll want to click over to lots of full albums 😉
- We listened to this song – My Own Two Hands, by Ben Harper and Jack Johnson – then traced our hands and wrote ways we could make the world a better place with our own two hands.
- This is a video of a kindergartener explaining the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s cute, accessible for littles (my own kindergartener thought it was super cool to watch another kinder on a video) and they show pictures of MLK’s life and world.
- The Snowy Day is available as a short cartoon on Amazon, and it’s darling! Definitely worth a watch, and helpful in teaching about other holidays and how our differences can bring us together.
Those are a few places that have been helpful to our family in starting – and continuing – good conversations today! I’m going to gather up some of our favorite pictures books that feature people of color and share them with you in a future post too, so hang tight for that one. {In the meantime, look at your students book order! Scholastic book orders from my kids school are the way I’ve been able to affordably extend our picture book collection to be more inclusive, and find books about historical figures that my kids can understand. We received book orders starting in preschool, and continue to receive and order from them monthly now in kindergarten.}
I also want to tell you – don’t fear the awkward. If these conversations are new to you and yours, it might feel awkward. But your kids will only feel the weirdness if you let them. This is one of those times where ‘fake it til you make it’ will pay off.
Because widening our world and learning how to love others better is always the good and right way to be.
Aside from teaching our kids Bible principles, introducing them to and teaching them about people who practiced these principles and made a difference in the world definitely makes an impact on their tender hearts and souls.