Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day! Today we celebrate one of the most influential civil rights activist of our time. This day not only marks and honors the achievements and dreams of Martin Luther King Jr., but also how his leadership and actions influenced our society and country. This day also offers a great opportunity for children to learn more about the history behind why we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr., and all that he stood for. Below we have created a list of some awesome activities to help teach your children all about Martin Luther King Jr!
Infant
1. Hand print turtle dove painting
- For this activity, your infants can make their own turtle dove painting out of their hand prints.
Things You Will Need:
-White, Green, Brown paint
-Medium sized construction paper
Turtle doves are often associated as symbols of peace. Peace and togetherness were some of the main themes of Martin Luther King Jr.'s activism. To start, take your white paint, and carefully dip your infants hand in. Slowly make an impression on your construction paper. Next, guide their fingers to your green paint and only dip their finger tips in. Going down near your hand print, place your finger prints along the side. Last, guide them on using the brown paint to make eyes, feet a beak, and the vine of your olive branch. This is a fun sensory activity, that gives your infants a chance to mix and explore paint, while also creating a cute and inspirational memento.
2. Finger peace sign painting
- In this activity, your infant will create their very own peace sign finger painting!
Things You Will Need:
-multi colored paint
-Construction paper
-markers or a printable peace sign sheet
This is an easy activity, that just involves guiding your infant to finger paint on a drawn out or printed peace sign image. If you want, you can also guide them to use their finger to make a large peace sign shape themselves. Once they have the peace sign, all they will need to do is fill it in with different paint. Encourage them to use as many colors as possible. This is another great sensory activity that lets your infants be as creative as possible, while also building on small motor skills as they dip their fingers in the paint, press them into the page, and swirl and mix the colors.
3. Heart ice painting
-In this fun craft, your infant can create their own heart painting using ice!
Things You Will Need:
-Water
-Ice cube tray
-Food coloring
-paper plate
-Popsicle sticks (optional)
To start, carefully cut your paper plate into a heart shape. Divide and pour your water into the ice cube trays, and use your food color to make multiple colored cubes. Once your cubes are frozen solid, then you can give them to your infant to paint with! Encourage them to press the ice and slide it around the paper plate. They can observe and explore how the ice melts and mixes to form different colors. Your infant can have fun making their own heart creations, as well as explore the cold and wetness of the ice as well as the swirling colors!
Toddler
1. Holding hands painting
In this activity, your toddler will create their own heart shaped painting out of their hands!
Things You Will Need:
-Paint
-medium sized construction paper
To start, pour out the paint color of your choice into a small bowl. Gently guide your toddler in dipping both of their hands into the paint. Slowly make an impression of their hands upside down on your construction paper. Make sure that when you make your imprint, that you leave space in the middle of the hands for your heart shape. You can have them dip other parts of their hands into other color paints and keep making various imprints over top of your main imprint for a rainbow hand! This activity is easy to do, and let's your toddler explore all the different colors and texture of the paint.
2. Dream cloud board
- In this activity, your toddlers will create and decorate their very own dream cloud board.
Things You Will Need:
-Paper plates
-Cotton balls
Glue
-Construction paper
-Markers
- multi colored streamer paper
One of the most recognizable themes of Martin Luther King Jr., was his openness about his goals, dreams, and vision for the future. With this activity, you can create an early memento of all the things that makes your toddler happy. To start, come up with a list of simple things your toddler loves, and what makes them excited. Use this list for your "dream" clouds. Carefully cut your paper plates in half. Guide your toddler to glue the plates onto the construction paper. Next, have them glue on their cotton balls to the plates. Carefully cut your streamer paper, and write down each item on their list. Once you have finished, have them glue it underneath the cloud. You can ask them questions about whether they can recognize and name each color they are using. This is a great sensory activity that focuses on creative expression, as well as color recognition as your toddler pinches and glues down each streamer and cotton ball to create their clouds.
3. Earth shape puzzle
- In this activity, your toddler will put together their own Earth made out of felt fabric pieces.
Things You Will Need:
- multi colored felt fabric pieces
-Scissors
-Glue
-Velcro
Throughout Martin Luther King Jr.'s life, he talked about the importance of everyone coming together. Although this may be an abstract concept for your toddler, it's never to early to introduce them to concepts of how things can always come together. To start, trace out shapes onto your fabric sheets. You can help your toddler try to trace their own shapes as well. Don't worry about getting them exactly like the continents. Next, cut out your shapes and glue your velcro pieces to the backs of them. Make sure you used a previous shape to help guide in making a shape that will fit into it and so on. Once you have your pieces finished, you can let your toddler have fun practicing putting their "earth" together. This activity helps introduce basic shapes, and helps build on small and large motor functions as your toddler tries to stick and attach all the shapes together.
Preschool
1. Hand color wreath mixing
-For this activity, your children will create their own wreath by using hand print paintings.
Things You Will Need:
-Multi colored paint
-large cardboard piece
-multiple bowls
-paintbrushes
This is a great activity, that focuses on the emphasis that Martin Luther King Jr. put on everyone being equal. You can have fun showing your preschooler how beautiful each color hand print is, and how they all come together. To start, divide your paint into each of your small bowls. We also suggest using a large plate and dividing a small amount of paint around the entire plate. Next, have your children dip their hand into one color, and make an impression on the cardboard at four parts of your wreath. Continuing dipping your hand and making imprints until you have a pattern. Encourage the children to mix the colors and add those imprints as well in the middle. This activity can help build small motor skills, as well as contribute to color and pattern recognition skills.
2. People cookie baking activity
In this delicious activity, children will bake their very own cookie people.
Things You Will Need:
-sugar cookie mix
-chocolate chip mix
-gingerbread mix
-gingerbread man cookie cutter
-small heart cookie cutter
-red hard candies
You can refer to our d.i.y cookie recipes from our past blog, or follow the directions from each cookie mix. Once you have your dough ready, divide them into spoonful amounts. Roll your dough out and use your gingerbread cookie cutter to make your people. Next, take your heart shaped cookie cutter and make an imprint in the middle. Take your hard red candies and put them in a plastic bag. Crush the candies and divide each and pour into the heart centers. Bake as needed and enjoy! This is a great activity, that gives you an opportunity to show your children how even though we may all look different, it's what's on the inside that counts. Your children can have fun practicing their counting and measuring skills as well, as they handle all the ingredients. They also have a chance to build on their large on small motor skills, rolling the dough, shaping the cookies, and mixing everything!
3. People Chain
-In this activity, children can make their own paper people chain using construction paper.
Things You Will Need:
-scissors
-construction paper
-markers and crayons
Start off by guiding your children in folding a sheet of construction paper length wise into itself resembling an accordion design. On one front side of the folded paper, have the children draw half of a person's body from head to toe. Carefully cut out their shape through out the whole paper folded. Once you have finished, unfold your paper people design, and have the children decorate the people as they please. The paper people should be held together by their hands creating a chain like design.
4. Martin Luther King Jr. color sheet:
-Here is a link to a free printable worksheet that features a fun Martin Luther King Jr. coloring activity! Courtesy of Clipart.email
School age
1. Martin Luther King Jr. silhouette and goals craft
In this activity, children will make their own version of the famous Martin Luther King Jr. silhouette, as well as created their own "dreams and goals" bubbles craft.
Things You Will Need:
-lamp
-large sheet of white construction paper
-black construction paper or black paint
-scissors
-markers
Start off by having your child sit down in front of your large white construction paper. We suggest hanging the paper on your wall. Shine your lamp light onto the side of your child's face; making a silhouette of their profile on the paper. Trace their silhouette with a marker. Next, you can either use black construction paper, or black paint to cut and paste or fill in your silhouette. When they are finished, cut out a word bubble shape out of white construction paper, and glue it next to your silhouette. Have the children write down their goals and dreams for their future. If they want, they can also write down some of the things that they are excited for. This activity is great for self reflection, as well as grants you an opportunity to talk about the goals and dreams of Martin Luther King Jr., and what he worked towards.
2. Good person flower number activity
For this activity, children will think about ways in which they can be a kind person, while practicing their numbers!
Things you Will Need:
-markers
-construction paper
-scissors
-glue
-tape
Similar to our silhouette activity, children will think about ways and the qualities they admire. Help them come up with a list of ways in which they can be a kind person. You can divide your list into parts, such as how to be a kind friend, student and family member. Ask them to count how many ways they can come up with. Once they have finished, ask them to draw and cut out a flower and its petals. Each petal should represent one way in which they can be kind. Ask them to compare their flowers to each other. How many ways can they be a kind student compared to a kind friend? What's their favorite way? This is a great activity that let's your children reflect on their actions and how they might influence the people around them, while striving to be the best version of themselves.
3. Hero inspiration vocab activity
In this activity, children will write who their hero's are, while practicing their vocabulary
Things You Will Need:
-Markers
-construction paper
-scissors
-glue
Martin Luther King Jr. was a very influential person, who many people looked up to. When discussing what type of person he was, there can be many ways to describe him an his actions. For this activity, children will describe their own personal heroes, as well as think and reflect on why they choose that person, and what qualities the person has, that they admire. Start off by helping the children think of who they admire. You can make a short list if you prefer. Once they have chosen their people, write out the person's name length wise on a sheet of construction paper. Next to each letter, try to have the children come up with different words to describe the person of their choice. Some letters might be trickier than others, but this allows the children a chance to learn new words and their meanings! Have them decorate their pages in any way the choose.
4. Martin Luther King Jr. word search
Here is a link to a free printable worksheet that features a Martin Luther King Jr. vocabulary word search activity! Courtesy of freehomeschooldeals.com
5. Martin Luther King Jr. research
- For this activity, your children will conduct their own research all about Martin Luther King Jr. To start, Help them come up with a list of questions that they might have surrounding the holiday and Martin Luther King Jr. Himself. Some of these questions can include:
-Who was Martin Luther King Jr. ?
-What did Martin Luther King Jr. do?
-Why do we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day?
-Why is Martin Luther King Jr. important?
You can even make this research activity into a game, asking your children who can find the most answers to each question or how quickly. Once they're finished, you can also encourage them to present their research and all the information they have gathered. This is a great activity that helps promote self conducted research, and the ability to answer your own questions.
Here are a few links to some websites that can help in your research!
Here is a list of some helpful books all about Martin Luther King Jr.!
1. This Little Dreamer: An Inspiration Primer board book by Joan Holub
2. I am Brave: A Little Book about Martin Luther King Jr. (Ordinary People Change the World) by Brad Meltzer
3. My First Biography: Martin Luther King Jr. by Marion Dane Bauer
4. The Story of MartinLuther King Jr. by Johnny Ray Moore
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