Martin Luther King Jr.

This past week was a short (4 days) but busy week for us.  Today is a workshop day to do report cards.  Being that I got mine done over the weekend, I have been cleaning my classroom out.  I have so much stuff in my classroom that I have collected for years.  I just don't know where to begin.  For one, who uses borders anymore?  I would like to know because I have LOTS of them to get rid of!  With white boards and Smart boards in our classroom, I have NO bulletin board.  I have all these borders that I have collected for years and have tears rolling down my cheeks as I am packing them up and finding a new home for them.  BUT, I DON'T NEED them.  I have to keep reminding myself of that! 

This is just from one of the boxes, so many cute, seasonal borders. 

Anyway, this past week was one of my favorite weeks ever.  We talked about Martin Luther King Jr.  I started the week by giving all of the kids that were wearing pink in my class a piece of candy.  I let them eat it in front of their classmates.  The kids that didn't get candy had some pretty sad faces and said it wasn't fair.  They kept asking why they didn't get candy too.  I asked them how they felt and the kids that got candy said that they were happy they got some.  Some were sad and wanted to share theirs with their friends.  I asked if this reminded them of anything...or if they could make a connection to this activity.  Some of the kids said it reminded them of when they don't get to play on the computer and their siblings do or of when their siblings get to go to a birthday party and they don't get to go.  They asked why the kids in pink got candy again.  I said that it was because I liked pink better.  I said I might let them have extra playtime or candy everyday!  Finally one little girl said, "I get it!!  This is how black people used to be treated!"  YAY!!!  I am glad someone made the connection.  I asked if they knew who changed the laws and a little boy said that Martin Luther King Jr. had something to do with it!  YAY!  We then talked about how it felt to be left out because of a color that you are wearing.  They sad bad and they couldn't believe that ANYONE ever treated black people that way!  I am so glad they don't see colors in our class or treat each other differently because of skin color.   After our discussion we read a book about MLK. 

I then took out a brown egg and a white egg.  We talked about the colors of the shell.  I asked them which one they would eat or choose to eat.  Many of them chose the white egg.  They said the brown one looked different.  We talked about how you cannot judge someone or something by how they look on the outside.  I then said I was going to open the eggs. 

I cracked one open and we talked about what we noticed.  It looked like the eggs that they are familiar with. 
We opened the other egg.

We then discussed how they were the same on the inside.  I mixed them around and had them try to guess which was which.  They couldn't tell.  This led into the discussion of how we are all the same on the inside.  We just look different on the outside and it's okay...it makes us unique.  We read two more books.

I absolutely LOVE these books!  The pictures are incredible.  After reading these books we did an experiment with paint.  I told them that we all have different skin colors.  Our pigments are all different.  I told them that we all had a tint of brown in our skin.  I dumped some brown paint into a container and had them tell me when the color I had in the container matched their skin.  I added some white.  As the brown got lighter and it matched kids skin, I painted their hands and had them make a hand print.  It eventually turned into a peach color.  The kids were amazed that it started out brown.   After all hand prints were dry we cut them out, put our names on them and made this friendship circle.

We did some fun activities that I purchased from Susan at T.G.I.F..  You can find the packet here.
MLK packet on her TPT store. 

I also did a fun MLK art project that I got here.  MLK art project.  They turned out super cute!!!

We wrote about our dreams from Susan packet and did the fun art project!  They were so fun! 

We're suppose to have the coldest weather we've had in 5 years...which probably means indoor recess all next week!  What do you do for indoor recess?  I usually have my kids play games, but need some more ideas!

I hope you all have a great weekend!  I am off to throw out more stuff!
Sara