Peaceful history lessons...

We spent the week learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he helped change laws that were not fair.  The kids soaked up the information about his life and his vision for change.  We also learned about Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges - two girls also involved in the change called The Civil Rights Movement.  The overall lesson was peaceful conflict resolution.  The K-Kids made connections with the idea of peaceful conflict resolution and wrote about a time they wanted something and how they solved the problem peacefully.  We also made a wreath of our hands and wrote words that described Dr. King and many of the kids wrote peaceful, kind, brave, and helpful.  A culminating activity involved the K-Kids writing about how they would like to change the world by finishing the sentence - I have a dream that... Some of the kids got the "big picture" by dreaming there would be no more litter, everyone would be friends, everyone would have happy families.  Some friends were a little more narrow in their vision and hoped for a new puppy or for a play date with their best friend. :)  Nonetheless, they thought of a dream and discussed how they could make it happen peacefully.  I was so proud of the conversations that took place this week and the interest level in the subject of history!

During Literacy Corners the K-Kids read a mini-book about Dr. King and highlighted WOW words and the word - dream.  They made a birthday card to celebrate Dr. King's birthday and made shape patterns on the birthday cake.  They also created WOW words using fun linking letter cubes and wrote the words as they made them.  I was able to begin my reading assessments this week, and I am SOOOO impressed with the sight word identification and reading fluency of the K-Kids!

I introduced the number line and how to use it to solve addition and subtraction problems.  This is a great way to also reinforce number sense and comparing numbers (15 is higher than 10; 6 is lower than 12, etc.).  We played a card game called "Top-It" which is the "pc" name for the traditional card game War. :)  Top-It is a fun way to practice greater than and less than, and the kids loved playing with their friends!  We also did a fun activity involving different ways to make one sum.  They kids used paper cut-outs of kids and found all of the different combinations to make 4 - one girl and three boys, four boys and no girls, two of each, etc.

Enjoy the three-day weekend!  Hopefully your child can take a moment on Monday to share a little bit of history he/she learned this week with you.