I am having a bit a hard time coming up with activities for my class to do for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Something meaningful, not just color sheets of Dr. King or something.

I saw somewhere online that a teacher had her classroom have a birthday party for him, and it kinda bugged me, because that was so beside the point....

I've tried to leave out race from the discussion and tell them that Dr. King wanted for all people to get along, but I wanted to see I could include that this time.

I wanted to start out by talking about how all people are the same (body parts, need food, water, sleep, etc; need friends and family) and then look at pictures of people of different races and colors and talk about how they were different. We will talk about how Dr. King worked to help all these people love and be friends with each other, even though they were different.

That'll set the stage, but I still don't know many good art activities that make sense and have meaning.

Do any of you celebrate King Day and what activities do you do with your kids?

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I remember being in kindergarten and we did a bead bracelet/necklace activity for MLK day. There were different color beads to represent different color people. We first read a story about him then we talked about how wrong segregation was then came the activity. After that we all took pictures holding hands. My mother still has the picture.

We sang songs (we shall over come and others I can't remember) too.

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We are singing this song all week:

Mar-Tin Lu-ther King
Sung to the tune of "Bingo"

There was a man who had a dream
His name was Mar-tin Lu-ther King
Mar-tin Lu-ther King, Mar-tin Lu-ther King Mar-tin Lu-ther King
His name was Mar-tin Lu-ther King

Doctor King, he had a dream
He wanted peace for everyone P-E-A-C-E
P-E-A-C-E P-E-A-C-E
His name was Mar-tin Lu-ther King

Also.....I ordered a couple books from Amazon.com. One of the books I'm not sure about. This book tells accurate history about how African American's were treated.....could not eat in certain restaurants and how Martin Luther's Kings school was run down but the white school was new. Also, how they could only drink from a fountain that said "Colored". True....yes....and something kids will learn in school...but....I just keep thinking things brings up ideas these kids have not been exposed to. I prefer looking at it from the positive....God loves all of us....we are different.....we are all special. My kids don't know about racism and not sure it's something they need to know right now.

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One year I took pictures of kids.....2 kids together. Each kid got a picture of 2 kids glued on construction paper with a piece of typing ppaerthat said......We are alike because________________________________ and we are different because ____________________________. They would list about 2-3 things for each.

We've also made handprints with different shades of tan and brown.....we made them into a big wreath that said...."Love Comes in Many Shades".

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Here are few activities I have used in the past. You can tweak them to fit you age groups.

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Thanks for sharing Blackcat.

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What about a diversity collage. They could cut out pictures from old magazines etc. as a group project.

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