Happy Sunday friends! There is just something SO much sweeter about a Sunday when you are having a three day weekend!
As we gear up for this week, I wanted to share with you some of the activities and lessons that I will be doing with my sweet second graders this week!
We started on Friday with a little Martin Luther King Jr. craft and brief lesson. We read the Scholastic News first. I just LOVE Scholastic News and the information that is gives the kiddos. We also watched the Kid President. I LOVE this kid! His brief version explaining Martin Luther King Jr.’s life is just perfect!
Then we talked briefly about what our dreams for the world are. I did this activity for our rotations, so I did it with my class and 2 others. (To read more about rotations click HERE.)
To explain this dream a little bit…we just had a major fire at an apartment complex near our school. About 100 people were displaced, a lot of them from our school. So this kiddos dream is that there would be no more fires.
Moving into next week, we will focus on Dr. King. We have a strong GLAD focus at our school so we will start with this GLAD pictorial.
This is a REALLY great way to start the vocabulary and provide additional knowledge to their schema!
We will continue the week by reading MANY of the great books that explain this great man! We will also be watching his most important “I Have A Dream” speech. I love this time of year because it really brings into focus areas of our class community that have some issues that may need to be addressed. It really helps the kiddos to focus on equality!
During reading groups we will be working on our MLK passages, another great way for the kiddos to get that vocabulary!
Click on the picture to get a F/G FREEBIE of this passage!
To support our learning during our reading workshop, students will be working on our Black History Quick Reads.
I’m really excited about using these! While they focus on more then Dr. King, they are a great way for the kiddos to get some context about the struggle that was happening during this time. There is SO much information included in these quick reads, the kiddos will be working on them independently for the next few weeks. These quick reads start with the life of a slave and walk students through the important work of Harriet Tubman, President Lincoln, Dr. King and President Obama. There are sets for levels A-I. Since they are leveled, you can have the students work at a level that will allow them to be successful independently.
All of this will be a foundation for the students to compare and contrast when we move onto our Black History study, RI 2.9, and making connections to historical events, RI 2.3.
I try to squeeze every minute out of our ELA block and all of these activities will help accomplish that. The kiddos will be totally immersed and I am hoping that they will become even more aware of how they are treating their classmates!
I hope that you all enjoy your extended weekend!!! May the week FEEL short to you all!!
