7 Ways to Educate Children About Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We recognize today as a day where we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but does it have meaning for our children other than being a day off from school?  Dr. King’s contributions do our children know who he was and his contributions to the history of our country?

Here are some age appropriate sites that I'll be sharing  to share with our kids (ages 5 and 8) to further their understanding about who Dr. King was and his impact on the Civil Rights movement throughout the day. Please make sure you preview them first to ensure that they are appropriate for your own kids.

• View snapshots of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life taken by photographer Benedict Fernandez during the last year of his life on the Scholastic Teachers site.

• Watch part of Dr. King’s historic “I have a dream” speech while following along by reading the text on Martin Luther King Online.

• Integrate some math by taking a look at the timeline of Dr. King’s life on The Seattle Times website.  Print the timeline out, mix up the events, and use the dates to discuss ordering numbers according to the tens and ones place. 

• Read age appropriate historical fiction and fictional stories about Dr. King.  A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr., My Dream of Martin Luther King, and The Story of Ruby Bridges are some of my favorites.  For more suggestions, visit Apples 4 the Teacher for a larger list of books about Dr. King.

• The National Civil Rights Museum had an interactive page where children can learn about what life was like in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 before the bus boycott.  Clicking on choices like schools, buses, restaurants, city hall, cars, people, etc. will provide children with an idea of what discrimination was like and this site is most appropriate when done together since there is reading involved.  The rest of the site is geared towards middle school students or children with an deeper understanding of the court cases that enabled segregation.

• Honor the life of Dr. King by engaging in a day of service by finding opportunities for your family through the Martin Luther King Day of Service website.  Just enter in your

• Apply what you’ve learned as a family and take time to be kind.  Perhaps you’ll be inspired to complete 100 acts of kindness between now and Valentine’s Day.

Whatever you do today, it seems quite fitting to leave you with this quote from the great Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."