Ben Porat Yosef students commemorated Martin Luther King Day in meaningful ways. Pre-K students discussed and described similarities and differences among their friends in the classroom. The children concluded that with all that is similar and different between them, what matters most is what is on the inside of a person, and how we treat one another.
As part of their biography unit, the second grade has been studying Martin Luther King and discussing the Civil Rights Movement. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, they spoke about sit-ins and peaceful ways to protest. The students also had the opportunity to see part of Dr. King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The second graders focused particularly on one line of the speech, “I have a dream that one day my four little children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character.” The students connected this line to their study of character traits in their Reading Workshop, and agreed on the importance of seeing a person for who they are on the inside. The lesson concluded with a discussion about some of their own dreams to make the world a better place.
The third grade students discussed the book, “Sit In,” a true story about four students who peacefully protested segregation in an all-white restaurant.
Fourth grade students discussed Martin Luther King, Jr. and the vision he left for the world. With Dr. King in mind, the fourth grade began to create an “Acts of Kindness and Justice” brick wall in the classroom. This idea, facilitated by an organization called DoSomething.org, was inspired by The Kindness and Justice Challenge proposed by Martin Luther King III and Coretta Scott King in 1999. The intent of the challenge is to keep Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream alive into the future. The students received a brick wall page and began collecting data on their acts of kindness and justice. Each time they do an act of kindness or justice, they write a sentence on a brick about the act. The completed pages will then be displayed on the wall in their classroom.
