This week we finished up our abuse prevention lessons and moved on in to talking about Diversity. In Kindergarten we read the book, The Crayon Box that Talked and talked about ways that we are the same and different in our class. We explored how our differences are what make us unique and we all decided that life would be pretty boring if we were all the same! The children then drew self-portraits on crayons, decorated their crayons and we put them all in a big crayon box and marveled at how beautifully different each crayon was and how that made our project more interesting! My practicum student helped out and showed the children a clip from Sesame Street in which Elmo and Whoopie notice differences in their skin, fur and hair.

 

 

In first grade we read the book The Skin You Live In, and we noticed all the beautiful shades of skin we could see in the classroom. The book compares skin colors to different types of foods so for our activity the children selected a food that reminded them of their skin and drew self portraits incorporating the food in some way. They also explained why the food they chose reminded them of their skin.

 

In second grade we talked about what it means to be or feel different. We wondered if it was a good or bad thing. We read the book Odd Velvet and decided that it can be a wonderful thing to be different and different does not always mean weird! The children had fun writing two little known facts about themselves on a piece of paper and then sitting in a circle and guessing which fact belonged to which person. We learned a lot about one another!

In Ms. Lenz's fifth grade we again discussed how we are the same and how we are different. We explored what it means to feel different and how we can help someone who might feel bad about their differences. We read the book The Boy Who Grew Flowers and the kids had fun working in pairs learning how they were similar and different from their peers.

Hope you all have a great weekend!