A Kindergarten Birthday Party for Martin Luther King!

As readers of this blog know, I have been a teacher for a long time.  A quick recap:  I started as a learning disabilities teacher in 1977 and taught until the birth of our first child in 1985.  I was a private educational tutor until 1995 when I began my 23 year career as a kindergarten teacher.  So, that's a lot of years--and a lot of files!  When I sat down to look through my file on MLK, I was curious to find my earliest lesson on this great American.

Here is what I found:

                         Here is a copy of Sing About Martin that you can actually SEE!

This song was copied from the January 1984 Instructor magazine (now Scholastic.)  It's author, the late "Miss Jackie" Weissman, wrote a lot of really great songs for early childhood.  You can listen to recordings of Sing About Martin on YouTube.  I know you will love it!  Just think: in 1984, I taught my students this song and I'm still teaching it to students 34 years later...

During those 10 years while I was home with our own kids and tutoring, I came up with the idea of having a birthday party to celebrate MLK.  We got together with another family with young children and tried it out.  I also volunteered to "throw a party" for my daughter's first grade class.  So, when I returned to the classroom in 1995, I was eager to start partying with my kindergarteners!  The idea of birthday parties for American heroes was well-received by parents and administrators.  It even attracted local media attention.  In 2007, a colleague and I offered a "Birthday Parties for American Heroes" workshop at the Illinois Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's annual kindergarten conference. 

Introducing Martin Luther King

On the first day of school in January, I put a photo of MLK on our classroom calendar.  I also set out invitations to the birthday party at each child's place.  Their interest and enthusiasm are sparked right away!  Some years, I have invited parents to the birthday party, as well.

I usually devote a week of shared reading, read-alouds and writing lessons to MLK.  Our shared reading is of the Sing About Martin song. This year, I plan to include a second shared reading activity which I found on Pinterest.

Thanks to growinginprek.com

I also read portions of a couple of biographies of MLK.  Kindergarteners really enjoy stories of his childhood and the first of these books is especially good at portraying young MLK.  I hope you can find it somewhere because it is out of print. The second biography presents Dr. King's accomplishments sensitively. The Scholastic weekly magazine, Let's Find Out, has improved its presentation of information in recent years.  I include it as a read aloud, too.

After we read a bit each day, we recall the facts we learned on a class chart like the one below.  Then, each student refers to the chart to compose a sentence and draw a related picture (or two or three.) 

There is a second chart where we recall facts about Big MLK, as well.

I like kindergarteners to write one sentence per page and staple the pages together into a booklet.  Sometimes I give them the opportunity to do some directed drawing for the cover page.  This year, due to time constraints, I have drawn the book cover and the students will have a chance to color it.

                                                   If you'd like a copy of this, click here.

The Birthday Party

There are so many possibilities for how to create and conduct the actual birthday party.  Depending on a particular group of students, parental support, and whatever else is happening in life, I have "gone all out" and kept it simple.  It's all good!  Here are ALL of my ideas so you can pick and choose.  However, if you must choose just ONE, I really hope you choose to play my game, "Going on a Long March."

• Brainstorm features of a birthday party with the kids and tell them we will try to include several of them at Dr. King's party and others at parties for Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

• Make red, white, and blue paper chains and leave them up as decorations through the parties in February for the presidents.

• Make a handprint banner in all the beautiful shades of brown.  Read The Colors of Us by Karen Katz.
  
• Make T-shirts for the kids/with the kids:  Have everyone send in a short sleeved white undershirt or a couple of dollars to pay for ones you buy in packages of 3 at Target.  Print my design on iron-on transfer paper and make the t-shirts as gifts for the kids to wear at the party and afterwards.  They can add MLK's initials and the year using fabric markers.  Or, if you have a parent helper, have him/her use sponges and fabric paint with the kids as I did on this sample shirt.

For a copy of the iron-on transfer, click here.

• 
  Make party hats.  This is the hat we will be making this year.
  

  

  You can purchase this headband from TpT:
  thanks to K is for Kinderrific!

• Vote on whether to have cupcakes or ice cream as the birthday treat.
  

This year, we voted for ice cream !

• Count the candles on MLK's birthday cake or dish of ice cream.  Use red candles for the tens and blue for the ones.  Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929.  So, for example, this year he would be 89: that's 8 red candles and 9 blue ones.

• Share your dreams for a better world.  Before the party, have the children draw, write, and/or tell their dreams for a better world.  At the party, read everyone's dream aloud and put all of the dreams in a gift bag or box.

• Best of all, play "Going on a Long March."  It is my version of "Going on a Bear Hunt." Everyone stands in a circle and marches in place for a few beats.  Then you read a line and everyone repeats that line while marching.  When you read, "Oh, no," everyone stops marching.  When you read, "Two different neighborhoods" (or schools, drinking fountains, beaches) everyone follows your lead to point in one direction, then the other.  When you read, "No fair!"  everyone follows your example and gestures "No!" with a wagging pointer finger. At the end, repeat "Listen to his dream" three times, using a progressively softer voice to help everyone calm down.  And then discuss what you have just re-enacted.  It's powerful fun and powerful teaching... and you can get a copy of it here!