Music Activities for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Wanting to incorporate activities in your music classroom for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and don't know where to start? Well you've come to the right place! I've even created an awesome bundle that I posted here with slides, worksheets, fill-in-the-blank notes, projects, and more! But, if you want to create your own resources, below are multiple ideas on what to do in your music classes over the next 2 weeks!

Idea 1: Teach your students about who Martin Luther King Jr. was and what the civil rights movement was!'

Make a powerpoint about Martin Luther King Jr., show your students some age-appropriate youtube videos about Martin Luther King Jr., or ask your students to research about him. Teaching them a little bit about history is never a bad thing!

Idea 2: Teach your students the song "We Will Overcome," which was the anthem of the civil rights

Here is a link to the sheet music on bethsnotesplus.com. Your students will love this song.Try adding an orff arrangement to make it more complex.

Idea 3: Have your students create their own composition based on the civil rights movement.

Ask your students about what groups of people are discriminated against in today's society. Once they decide on a topic, you can split students into groups or have students individually create their own song. This can be as easy as replacing the words to a well-known song, creating their own lyrics, writing a melody, writing accompaniment to go with it, and more.

Idea 4: Teach your students about prominent black musicians, either before, during, or after the civil rights movement.

This activity can even be extended into a research project where students find other black musicians than the ones you mentioned in class and have them create a short powerpoint presentation or poster to share with the class.

As you can see, there are tons of ways to include Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement into your music classroom. You can find my bundle of slides, fill-in-the-blank notes, worksheets, projects, and more here.