Free MLK Martin Luther King Day Lesson Plan Download

MLK Day is Monday! What do you plan to do with your students for the day? Will you take the day off? Will you have school as usual? Will you implement a lesson plan on Martin Luther King and Civil Rights?

A few years ago, I put together a short lesson plan that involves this holiday.  I had begun this site as a place to share free lesson plans, and I never completed all I had in my head at the time. But, I'd like to share it with you now if you're interested in a quick, easy history lesson for the day.

You can find it and use it for free at:

Puddle Jumping site - Select the picture of MLK

Or, if you prefer, you can go directly to the MLK Day PDF. It will open in your browser, so no worries of any downloading fears.

Homeschooling Kindergarten

Do you homeschool kindergarten?  Some do, some don't.  You may or may not be aware of this, but most states do not require kindergarten - even for public-schooled children.  The state where I live does not require a child to be formally educated at all until the year they turn 7.  So, Kindergarten is not a requirement.

In 1840, the first Kindergarten was opened in Germany.  In the states, the first Kindergarten classroom provided was in 1856, in Wisconsin.  My city, and Susan Blow, are known for opening the first publicly financed Kindergarten in the US, in 1873. Regardless of who is credited for its start, Kindergarten is just a gentle way of making schooling appealing to children, and easing them into their next 12 years behind a desk.

So, is it important to homeschool Kindergarten?  The answer really depends on your personal preference, and your state's requirements.  If your state requires it, then you will need to provide this for your child.  If your state does not require education until after the child's Kindergarten year, then Kindergarten is completely up to you.

If you decide to homeschool Kindergarten, it is one of the most fun years.  The curriculum really mostly just covers a really good, sound letters and numbers foundation.  Other than that, you can throw in some basic social studies and science learning, some physical education, and some art.

Everything with Kindergarten teaching/learning is fun and exciting.  Everything is so bright and colorful, and friendly looking.  If you decide to homeschool your Kindergartner, enjoy the process!  Provide tons of coloring pages, and hands-on crafts that tie into all learning.

Make letter shapes out of:

• Play-Dough
• Craft Sticks
• Masking Tape on the floor
• Sandpaper sheets
• Crayons with paint overtop, to reveal secret letter

Do the same with forming numbers, and writing number words.  With numbers, also be sure to include plenty of manipulatives, such as:

• Plastic animals
• Large buttons
• Recycled lids
• M&Ms

Have some fun making number cards with your child.  Cut out a picture of objects, and glue them to a recipe card.  Above the number, write the number and the number word.  Or, play matching games with one side showing the number, and the other showing the number word.

Science is fun at this stage, as well.  Do tons of hands-on experiments, such as planting bean seeds in a wet paper towel, inside a zip-lock bag.  Go to a petting zoo.  Anything your child can see and touch indents the learning experience into their memory.

Social Studies involves learning basic cultural facts, manners, and maps.

Art is so much fun for Kindergartners, as they can get their "hands dirty".  Provide tons of finger paints and other paints, clay, Play-Dough, pencils, crayons, markers, scissors, and glue.  Learning basic hand-eye coordination, and other skills, such as cutting, is the important underlying skills you want to teach during all lessons, including art.

Just enjoy!  They don't stay little for long, and as their studies progress, they get more and more in depth and less and less colorful and fun.  Now is your chance to make learning exciting, and introduce your child to a life filled with learning.

Teaching To Learning Styles with Exercise Balls, LEGOS and Visual Cues

Do you ever feel like you're droning on and on and on when you read something to your child. It's as if you're talking but no one is listening, or even interested in listening. Or, perhaps, one child gets it plain as day when you read, but the others do not. Why? This is probably because one child is an auditory learner while the others are visual or kinesthetic or tactile.

Kinesthetic learners can be a challenge to instruct for the parent who would prefer to sit quietly while instructing. This is because they require constant motion. Some schools have even gone to using exercise balls for the children to sit on while they listen to instruction as it gives them movement which helps these learners learn best.

Teaching visual learners is all about providing enough instruction through the child's sense of vision. This can be done in a number of ways, by using video, pictures, large books or visual cues. Following is a great article on how to use visual cues to help students learn:

What Are Visual Cues And Teaching With Visual Cues

For the Hands-On Learner, the one who understands through the sense of touch, toys like LEGOS can prove to be your best friend. You can even instruct complicated theories and teaching such as how physics & mechanics work, by using LEGOS. Following is a fun article that explains how to use LEGOS to teach Mechanics in Physics:

Teach Physics & Mechanics With LEGOS

It's January 10, So Why Is My Christmas Tree Still Up?

The house smells like gingerbread!
We have a warm fireplace (heater that looks like a real fire) going!
The sounds of Christmas are in the air.....But, wait! It's January 10! So, why are we celebrating Christmas today?

This year Chritmas got off to a good enough start in our household with the tree being up even before Thanksgiving ready and beautifully in place in time for my parents to come enjoy Thanksgiving with us. Then, we celebrated Hanukkah (yes, we're an odd household that enjoys Hanukkah as well as Christmas). Then, we went into celebrating an early Christmas with my husband's side of the family. They came over here. Then we had the real thing. Then, a late Christmas celebration (on New Years' Day) with my side of the family.

Perhaps it was the late Christmas celebration that threw my kids for a loop thinking the season was still upon us. But, I FINALLY got around to taking the ornaments off of our tree last night only to be met with - "What are you doing?" "No, don't take down the Christmas tree!" "It's just not winter without that tree up." You get the idea. These were not just simple notes of a tinge of sadness but deep, gut-leveled jeers that began to tug at my heart as I placed each ornament into a tub to storage. I got to the point of having less than 10 ornaments hung when I decided - "I have an idea!"

I told the kids that on Monday, instead of doing typical English, Math, etc. that they could say their good-byes to the Christmas tree. So, this morning when they woke up one by one, one child plugged in the Christmas lights on our bare tree, and then they began to weed through the Christmas movies which they had missed this year. We are having a Christmas movie marathon before taking down the final ornaments, lights and branches to store away our artificial tree (severe pine allergy on that one) for another year. We are baking gingerbread cookies (though, we did shape them in the shape of hearts for a more up-to-date holiday - Valentine's Day!)

Now, if and how I can log this day of farewell to Christmas has taken some thought. I will incorporate the benefits of ginger and the history of it with our cookie making and allow the children to design their own cookies. I even brought up the story book we have that tells the Christmas story using cookies. So, I can definitely log as Religious Studies through the telling of the actual Christmas Story. Though, the watching of the Grinch and Strawberry Shortcake Christmas may take a bit more imagination as to how they are applicable to the Three R's.

And, from a glance out my window; tomorrow looks as if it will be a day of snow learning complete with sledding and maybe some more snowflake investigations!