We Have A Dream!

In addition to making our awesome watercolor hands for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we also made Dream Mobiles which included dreams we had for ourselves, our community, and our world!

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." -Martin Luther King Jr.

We learned that Martin Luther King Jr fought peacefully for equality along with many others, including Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges, which brought about change in the United States and all around the world. We brainstormed a list of the dreams we had for ourselves and others with the help of Mrs. Hackett's daughter, who came in to be our special helper :)

Note: BBB stands for the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Disney World :) 

Afterwards, we got to work writing, cutting, and assembling our mobiles, which are now hanging around our classroom.

While some of our dreams may take a lot of time and effort to achieve, we can start helping many of them come true today! 

I Can Change The World With My Own Two Hands

We have been working hard on our display for Martin Luther King Jr. Day! We learned that Martin Luther King Jr. helped to change the world through his speeches and protests to help bring equality to the people of the United States. He wanted to put an end to segregation, which meant that people of different races could not work or go to school together. We wanted to show that while we are all unique, we can do lots together to change the world with our own two hands. 

We each traced our arms and created special designs inside of them, creating unique patterns and drawings that we traced over with crayons.

After we created and traced our designs, we painted over them with watercolors to finish our arms!

After carefully cutting out our creations, we put them together on a banner along with our painted hand prints, which hold ideas for how we can make the world a better place as well as the lyrics to Ben Harper's song With My Own Two Hands:

We Have Dreams, Too!

This week, we continued to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. and honoring his legacy by thinking of dreams we had to help the world. We wrote about these dreams and put them together into a Class Book!

Many of us dreamed of ways we could raise money or collect donations to help different organizations such as hospitals or the SPCA, and others dreamed of being kind to others and making the world a better place.

We talked about how we could pursue these dreams in the future or we could even start right now! After all, it is never too early to do what is right :)

With My Own Two Hands

On Tuesday, we read the poem With My Own Two Hands by Ben Harper (it is also a song!) and had a discussion about what it meant. We noticed the poem listed all of the good things we can do with our hands, including helping others and in turn changing the world. While it was hard for us to imagine what our country was like during times of segregation as well as to understand why segregation ever even existed, we talked about why it wasn't fair to treat anyone differently based on the color of their skin. We talked about how Martin Luther King Jr. fought for equality without using violence, and we talked about how he changed the world for the better through his words and through his protests.

After our discussion, we used watercolors to create all sorts of different colors and designs--no two paintings were alike! We also used our own two hands to make a heart, and we talked about all of the good we can do for the world. 

What Are You Doing For Others?

Hello, Families!

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, Scholastic is hosting a poster contest for grades K-12! Scholastic is asking students to create a poster to inspire others to help others and answer Dr. King's famous question: "What are you doing for others?"We will be celebrating the MLK Jr. Day of Service on January 20th in class when we return from our three-day weekend, but students are more than welcome to enter the poster contest as well!

If you are interested or know of someone who would be, entry forms and more details for the contest can be found here. Entries must be postmarked by February 28th, feel free to ask Ms. Riley if you would like to borrow or use any art supplies to create your posters. Good luck!