Martin Luther King, Jr. Poem and Activities

Be set for Martin Luther King Jr Day with this Martin Luther King Jr poem for your kindergarten, first grade, or second grade learners.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is honored on the third Monday of January every year. For years, a man by the name of John Conyers, a congressman from Michigan, worked to honor MLK with a national holiday. It wasn’t until 2000 that every state finally recognized this day. Teacher friends, we still have so much work to do on the topic of racial reconciliation, and I believe we can start in classrooms with this Martin Luther King Jr poem.

FREE Martin Luther King Jr Poem

If you are unfamiliar with shared reading, you can check out all the details here in this blog post where I share what to do and how our shared reading schedule would work.

I also revisit shared reading and talk about what it looks like as we consider the Science of Reading body of research and seek to have the best teaching practices in mind. You can find that helpful blog post HERE.

Use the poem during your shared reading time and tie it to your social studies lessons for the week. You may choose to:

• Find high-frequency words
• Find phonics patterns you are focusing on
• Model what to do when you come to a tricky word (sound it out!)
• Count syllables in words and practice breaking them up

This Martin Luther King, Jr. poem is a simple way to teach who he was and what he stood for as you honor him in your classroom.

CLICK HERE to grab the Martin Luther King, Jr. poem FREE!

After you are done using this for the week, be sure to give each student a copy to place in their Song and Poem books to read and reread during independent reading time. Students love to re-read things they are familiar with. You may even find them practicing the skills you focused on with the poem!

MLK Activities for Little Learners

When teaching about Martin Luther King, Jr. there are countless things to teach about his life and big topics as you discuss what he stood for, fought for, and ultimately died for.

Friends, your students are not too young for these topics. Of course, you want to teach them about who Martin Luther King, Jr. was, but you also can’t ignore really talking about what he stood for.

And you shouldn’t.

Talking about things that are true, even if they make you uncomfortable, is worth it! Kids can do great things and are capable of taking what we feel is complex and breaking it down to simplicity in a way that only kids can do.

If you are looking for a resource that will help jump-start your important conversations as you honor Martin Luther King, Jr. this print and digital flip book is perfect for you!

This age-appropriate flip up book is great to use as a tool to teach about a few of his historical life events. Students can learn from him to work towards racial reconciliation. It has a cut-and-paste timeline, writing response space, information about his famous speech, a reading comprehension passage, true and false statements, and reflection.

It’s available in print form and in Google Slides, too!

CLICK HERE to grab this in my shop!

If you are unsure of where to begin as you bring up these topics, start by sharing your own feelings. Kids can empathize well. They can relate to “I’m feeling sad.” or “I feel sad when I see _____.” They get that, friends. They truly do. We can lean into these conversations and be age-appropriate, but truth-filled, just like we do about Thanksgiving.

If you have any favorite read alouds or Martin Luther King Jr. activities to do for this topic, leave a comment and let me know! Don’t forget to grab your FREE Martin Luther King Jr Poem, too!