A Little December Diversity

It's a little early, I know.  However, I am taking advantage of the time off for Thanksgiving break to catch up on a few things, including lesson plans!  Well, that and I am still pumped from attending the VAASL conference in Williamsburg last weekend, so it's nice that I have some time off to put some of these fantastic ideas swirling around in my head to work!

First, a little background. Every year, the resource teachers plan and present a "resource day" for our last day of school before winter break.  This year, we're working with our ELL teacher (because we finally got a full time one!) to do a "Celebrations Around the World."  In anticipation of that, I wanted the students to have a little background information on diversity and different cultures the week of our resource day (that Friday).  The world, lately, seems less tolerant of anything different, so I thought it would be a good idea for our kiddos.

So, after "researching" on my favorite site, Pinterest (hey, I'm a visual learner!), I found some great resources as well as ideas for books to use!

For K-2, I'm going to use the book, Whoever You Are, by Mem Fox.


For 3-5, I'll be using The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane DeRolf


I found some great resources to use with each of these books.  For K-2, they'll be completing a matching activity I found at From ABCs to ACTs.  I was also inspired by a blog post by The Inspired Counselor about The Crayon Box That Talked.

As I was writing this post, my brain started whirring about other activities, which led to this:

If you're interested, click on the picture below to take you to see more.  It offers several activities that I'll use as centers on locating the continents/countries we're featuring for our resource day, and identifying the flags as well as some of the traditional dress from the countries. (Since TPT and TN are both having cyber sales soon, take advantage!).