Martin Luther King Jr. Lesson Plan Ideas and FREEBIES

Whether you have to work tomorrow or have the day off in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., chances are that you might want to teach your students a little more about the man and his accomplishments.  Here are a few resources and freebies to help you with your lesson planning this week:

Panicked Teacher has this poem and close reading activity all about Martin Luther King Jr.

 

 I had blogged about this mobile we made last week.  It is a freebie from Scholastic.

   

Laura Candler has this amazing packet full of activities to go along with the Martin Luther King Jr. Brain Pop video.

Here is a lesson plan to go along with the book Martin's Big Words.



Your students can create a Martin Luther King timeline of his important accomplishments with this idea from Crayola.

I also have a ton of other ideas pinned on my Pinterest board below.  If you like the ideas, please be sure to follow me on Pinterest for even more ideas and resources!


Follow Kelly's board Holidays in the Classroom - Martin Luther King on Pinterest.

Poppin' Place Value Freebie

 

If you are looking for a way to review place value with your students, you will love this adorable Poppin' Place Value I Have Who Has Game. I Have Who... Has? games  are a great whole group activity that can be used for review, test prep, fluency, listening skills, and mental math.

This set includes 30 cards that focus on place value with an adorable bubble gum - poppin' theme. Answer key is included. Your students will love practicing place value with this fun game! 

You can download this freebie here.

Minute to Win It

I know many of us are out of school and enjoying our summer vacations, but for those of you who are still in, I thought I would share a fun freebie for you from Tonya's Treats for Teachers that we used the last few days of school.  Even if you are out of school, you can file this idea for next year because it is so easy!

Last year we played some Minute to Win It games as well, but I spent hours searching for them on-line and this year was just too stressful and busy to do that again.  I was relieved when I found out that Tonya had done all of the work for me (and for FREE!).  Woo hoo!

The directions were so easy I was even able to leave it for a sub when I unexpectedly had to take Cody to the doctor for his broken arm check up.

Here are a few of the games in action in our class:

So much fun!

You can download this freebie below:

Minute to Win It

Manic Monday Freebie!

Manic certainly describes today in the Malloy household for sure!  I woke up this morning like any other ordinary Monday, took hubby to work and was working on getting the 8 year old ready when my 13 year old came up to me crying, "Mom, I really need to go to the doctor!"  He had been complaining about his ear hurting yesterday, but he said it was worse this morning.  So... I rushed to my computer to dash off some sub plans and request a sub. I went to the school to drop off said plans and other son and began to make copies. Of course the copier in my wing was down so I had to rush to the other hallway! AGG!  I really hate having to get ready for a sub and I keep cursing myself for not making emergency sub plans, but I never seem to get around to making them.  Anyway.. finally left there and took my son to the doctor where it was confirmed that he has an ear infection and tonsillitis.  Well, at least I had the time off to complete a new freebie for you!

You can download it on Teachers pay Teachers here or Teacher's Notebook here.

Hoping your day was less manic than mine!

5 For Friday - March 14

Another week down - and this marks the last day of our 3rd quarter - this year is flying by!  Time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five For Friday for a look back at our week.

This week started out with baseball tryouts for Tyler.  This year he has moved up a division in Little League and will be on the Juniors (a step above Majors).  If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know that Tyler LIVES for baseball.  Luke will be playing this year too, but he is on Farm, so he didn't need to try out yet.

We celebrated reading week this week and every day had 30 minutes of Stop, Drop, and Read.  The weird thing about it was that my kids normally do Daily 5 and have incredible stamina - a sub once commented that they read non-stop for 50 minutes. So, you would think they could handle this. No... They groaned every single time the announcement came over the loud speaker and I had to bribe them with extra recess just to get them to read the whole time.  GRRR!! Amazing what semantics can do.  Nevertheless, some of them did enjoy their books.

We have been working on Close Reading and Response to text this week.  We independently read an article about the dangers of soda.

Then we worked in groups to carefully read and discuss the article.  One group noted that companies paid schools to sell soda.  They labeled it "bribery" - I was impressed with their astuteness! 

I have been working at Cody's school directing the Drama Club.  While we were there he decided to tape Luke to a chair.  Ahh .. the perils of being a younger brother!  Luke was laughing the whole time, so I couldn't really be mad.  I just did what any other mother would do and snapped a pic - blog fodder right? Don't judge!

And finally, I have a little St. Patrick's freebie for you! I am linking up with Teaching Blog Addict for Freebie Friday!

These task cards are perfect for reviewing for state tests, or just general instruction.  You can get them from my TpT store here.  While you are there, don't forget to like my store so you can be notified of new freebies and updates.  Also, you will be qualified to win a $25 TpT gift certificate in my monthly giveaway!  I will be picking March's winner soon!

Have a great weekend!

Christmas Freebies

I know the last week before Christmas vacation can be a bit of a scramble, so I have scoured out a few great freebies to help with your planning!

I will be printing out this Trim the Fractions freebie for a few of my higher kids who have advanced to reducing fractions in Accelerated Math while the rest of the class is working on division.

Here is a fun writing prompt that could be used in January as well - If I Was In A Snowglobe Writing Prompt

My Sweet Story is a great way to review adjectives!

If you are trying to teach your kiddos about the true meaning of Christmas, you might want the check out this Kind Kids pack.

Enjoy your week!

Graphing Update and Throwback Thursday - Talking Turkey With a Freebie!

We followed up our cranberry lesson yesterday by making bar graphs.  It was interesting to see the variety of understanding they had.  I didn't teach them how to make a bar graph today, I just asked them to use the data to draw a bar graph so I could see what they remembered from their past experiences. Here are their graphs.

Also, I can't do these projects with my kiddos this year since I rolled up with the same students, but I figured I could show last year's as a "Throwback Thursday" in case you are looking for some more ideas for Thanksgiving next week.

This week we were inspired by this book to write a persausive paper pleading with readers not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving.

We pretended we were the kids in the book, and are working on persausive essays asking people not to eat turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Our school uses Write From The Beginning, but I have found it challenging for my students to use the circle map and tree map to write an essay - it just wasn't scaffolded enough for them.  So, I created graphic organizers for this prompt - and so far it is working great!  I can really find the areas that they need help on, and it has helped focus the students as writers.

Here are a few samples of the graphic organizers from today - 

And the final product:

I have the packet on sale in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here or in my Teachers Notebook store here if you would like to try them with your students.

I also have a FREEBIE!




We are Thankful Craftivity and Writing Prompt.