Ramblings...

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.”~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up so I’ve put together a mini lesson for us. We won’t just be focusing on MLK Jr., but on equality as a whole. On our learning board we have the word equality for our weekly vocabulary word, that will extend into next week as well. We also have a picture of MLK Jr. next to our vocabulary word, and the dates of his birth and death.

I found a printable activity book on Enchanted Learning that General Disarray will use, as well as some coloring sheets from various websites that both of TBM will use. For an art activity we will cut into my insanely large stack of magazines and create “Unity Collages”. I'll post pictures of them when we finish them.

Our reading books will encompass the bulk of our learning, since I’m looking to these as a way of prompting discussions and maybe a few journal entries.

Our book list is as follows *we own all of these, but you may be able to locate them at your local library, and if they don’t have them you can always request them*:

My First Biography: Martin Luther King, Jr. by Marion Dane Bauer

Our People by Angela Shelf Medearis

Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry With a Beat (includes audio CD) edited by Nikki Giovanni

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter To My Daughters by Barack Obama

In My Heart by Molly Bang

America’s Champion Swimmer: Gertrude Ederle by David A. Adler

Free To Be You and Me (includes audio CD) by Marlo Thomas and Friends

At My House What Makes A Family Is Love by Dee Dee Walter-Goodspeed

Is There Really A Human Race by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell

I found the Hip Hop Speaks book a while back and even though I’m personally not a huge fan of hip hop it seemed intriguing so I scooped it up. I’m really glad I did because it will fit in perfectly with our equality lesson. I won’t be using the whole book now, although when we study poetry I will come back to it. For now I’ll be using the following pieces *with accompanying audio tracks* from the book:

from Ladies First by Queen Latifah
People Equal by James Berry
from Umi Says by Mos Def
Dream Variations by Langston Hughes
Me by Elizabeth Swados
Love Poem For My People by Pedro Pietri
From Love Is by Common
The Rosa Parks by Nikki Giovanni
We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar
The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes
If We Forget by Ja Jahannes
and lastly but surely not least from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr.

I think I’ll track down some other poems, and possibly some video clips as well, we will just see how the rest of this week as well as next week plays out.

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscious stupidity.”~ Martin Luther King Jr.