Learn how you and your child can make Wish Tags to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. In partnership with Education.com.
By: Andrea Mulder-Slater
When my daughter first heard the story of Rosa Parks, it brought her to tears. Rosa was an African American woman who was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. It was an act which triggered a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional.
I reminded my daughter of this recently while talking about Martin Luther King Jr., a prominent civil rights activist who helped to organize the The Montgomery Bus Boycott in the baptist church where he was pastor at the time.
It was nearly eight years later when Dr. King delivered his now famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of 250,000 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
My daughter had heard snippets of the speech but she wasn’t completely familiar with the story of Martin Luther King Jr. And so, we decided to dedicate some time to learning more about the man behind the marches and Education.com had the perfect activity to help us do just that. MLK Wish Tags are a thoughtful and creative way for children to Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and message of peace and tolerance.
To begin with, we watched this video:
Then, after printing out a page with key quotes from the I Have a Dream speech, we listened to the speech, while reading the powerful excerpts.
We were then ready to complete our Wish Tags.
She and I both thought about our dreams for the world. Then, we wrote them out on the Wish Tags using pencils and pencil crayons.
When we were finished, we cut out the tags and added ribbon so we could display them in our home.
The piano seemed like a wonderful location to display the wish tags because it is visible for all to see.
Thanks to this activity, my daughter has a much firmer understanding and higher awareness of the rights and freedoms of all people (and, in my daughter’s case, animals as well).
You can make your own Wish Tags to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.
Required Resources:
#dreambigMLK
Find more educational activities, lesson plans, and printables to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with your child on Education.com.
This post is written in partnership with Education.com, nurturing each child’s passion, curiosity, optimism, and educational success.
