Martin Luther King for beginners.

MLK Brain PopToday, the kids and I had a good talk about Martin Luther King Jr., what he did, and why we honor his memory today. Of course most of this came as a result of  this excellent suggestion on Cool Mom Picks to watch the MLK Brainpop JR animated video.

(Thanks Christina, I can always count on you homeschoolers to know every educational tool on the web.)

Afterwards, I asked the girls one thing they learned from the video.

Thalia said, “people with brown skin weren’t allowed to sit on the bus where they wanted and he made sure that all people could sit anywhere they wanted.”

Sage said, “He went to Washington and lead a marching band!”

She was pretty impressed with that.

 

 

 

{11 Comments}

11 thoughts on “Martin Luther King for beginners.”

  1. This is great! Being a homeschooling mom myself, I also showed my girls a Scholastic DVD of Dr. MLK I found at Marshalls.

    I love how T said ‘brown people’, so do my girls! 😉

    My girls mentioned how Dr. King spread love. Children are so impressionable.

    1. She definitely has trouble understanding why we’re called “white” when our skin is not really white. Except for Angelina Jolie, evidently.

  2. Our day care was open today, which is a good thing, since so were both of our work places. They talked about Martin Luther King. I asked my daughter what they learned about him, and she said that he had a dream that all colors of people were the best.

    Talking with her about race is hard, and is only going to get harder. But I guess this is a good start.

  3. Thanks for sharing the link. I’ll have to watch it with my kids, even if it’s one day late. Talking to my kids about race is hard because we’re Mexican-American and grew up in the U.S. with friends of all races, socio-economic backgrounds, etc., but my husband is straight from the rancho in Mexico and…well, yeah…we see the world a little bit differently. I actually had to tell him repeatedly not to use the N word because he didn’t understand what was so bad about it. We have books about Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks and my children love to look at all the pictures and hear the stories. Hopefully together we’ll be able to teach my husband a little bit more about diversity and tolerance. I mean, we can’t expect people to accept us if we also don’t accept others, right?

    1. I’d imagine it’s never too late.

      There’s a wonderful chapter in NurtureShock about talking to your kids about race–my readers learned me about that one sometime last year. Evidently white folks tend not to talk about race, instead saying things like “we’re all the same inside,” which really just communicates that it’s something you’re not supposed to talk about. People of color, who live race relation issues every day, are more upfront, actually making their kids more educated and equipped to deal with it.

      With you at the helm, I have hope for your husband!

  4. I was talking to my first grader and his friend about MLK and asked them what they learned in school. My son’s friend (an African American) said, “He helped white people.” At first, I was a bit concerned that he had interpreted it backwards. Then I realized he had it right- MLK helped white people to understand that the laws were wrong, and that we’re all people with feelings and deserve to be treated like such. It was a beautiful moment when I realized the kids had a much better understanding than I did.

  5. I got to be in the United States for Martin Luther King day this year. I’m Canadian, but my folks live in Philadelphia. I felt like this was a learning experience for me too.

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