One cool way for kids to learn more about Martin Luther King's Dream today

If my kids ask me to tell them about Martin Luther King Jr’s accomplishments, I’m scared I’ll ramble on for so long, my kids’ eyes will glaze over. Hey, he did a lot.
Thankfully, smart-website Brain Pop and its little sister Brain Pop Jr have each put together concise, age-appropriate, and—most importantly—not boring videos about Dr. King’s life so that my kids can learn more about him on this day marking his birthday.

Brain Pop Jr’s Martin Luther King, Jr video, starring Annie and her curious robot Moby, is written for younger grade school students, though precocious preschoolers could follow along just fine. I like the slower pacing of the story for this age group, and I also like to click the “closed captioning” button so early readers can follow along. There are explanations of everything from segregation to the Nobel Peace Prize so that kids don’t get too confused by unfamiliar terms.

Geared more to older elementary school kids, Brain Pop’s Martin Luther King, Jr video also stars Moby the robot but he’s now with his older sidekick Tim. This shorter, four-minute video covers all of the same basic information, but geared towards kids with bigger vocabularies and the ability to handle some of the thornier issues of the civil rights movement.

In both videos, Dr. King’s assassination is covered, though I think that both are done with the age of the viewing audience in mind. And both videos end by reminding us that Dr. King’s fight didn’t end with his death–a timely message even now.

Watch Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. videos on either Brain Pop or Brain Pop Jr. for free. Each site also has additional activities and questions to go along with the video.

For another great teaching idea in honor of MLK Day, check out our suggestion on Cool Mom Tech today.

Tags: Black history