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Celebrate our Differences: We Are All Shades of Brown Reader

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Inside: Use this We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and also showcase how similar we are. 


I’m about as fair-skinned as they come. So when I first started teaching my very diverse group of Kindergartners during my first year of teaching, one of the first things I did was an All About Me unit.

And the best part of that unit was mixing shades of brown skin color paint to create handprints for each of them that actually matched their skin color.

Then we labeled each skin color fantastic color names: cinnamon toast, peach, milk chocolate, dark chocolate. 

Because in our diverse classroom, we needed to find a way to both celebrate our differences AND showcase that we’re all quite similar. We may have light skin and medium skin and dark skin that makes us look different, but our skin colors all just shades of brown.

So to help kids celebrate our differences (and see how similar we are at the same time), we can use this We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader set. 

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

Other Ways to Learn About and Celebrate Our Differences

It’s essential to not just acknowledge our differences or even tolerate our differences but to appreciate and celebrate our differences.

Why? 

When we take the time to see differences, we see people for who they really are. We can appreciate them for who they really are. People will feel seen, valued, heard, and understood. They will feel like they belong.

And a side benefit of celebrating differences is we bully-proof kids since bullies tend to go after the kids who are different.

We take away the “weird” of being different when we learn about and appreciate our differences. And when the weird is taken away, bullies have less things to single out and use to verbally or physically attack their victims.

So acknowledge, appreciate, celebrate, and showcase our differences because the world would be so boring if we were all the same. 

Related: 8 Ways to Teach Kids to Celebrate Differences

Resources to Celebrate our Differences:

We use the Rainbow Colors of Me to celebrate our differences.

Celebrate Diversity and our differences with this Rainbows Colors of Me printable. Kids can color all the colors of them.

We read this interactive We Celebrate Differently Emergent Reader in December to see how we all celebrate the December holidays.

We use this We Are All Different Emergent Reader to focus on all the ways we are different (and the same!)

If you want a more advanced version, you can use this We Are All Different Early Reader.

We learn about different abilities and how we can work and play with them, even if we have different ways of doing it with this Disability Appreciation Emergent Reader Set. 

And we can read books about our differences.

Books we can Read that Celebrate Our Differences:

People

038513181X

Intersection Allies

1948340089

We’re Different, We’re the Same

0679832270

One Big Heart

0310767857

It’s Okay to Be Different 

0316043478

It’s Okay to Be Different

0973410450

Same, Same, But Different

0805089462

The Color of Us 

0805071636

Skin Like Mine

0997157984

The Skin You Live In 

0975958003

Everybody Cooks Rice 

0876145918

Everybody Bakes Bread

087614895X

What Do You Believe?

1405362855

And we use this We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader.

How to Use the We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader

1. Download the We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader Set (download it below).

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

2. Print out the version you wish to use: color or black and white.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

3. Cut them apart. I swear by my paper cutter I bought my first year teaching because I can’t cut a straight line.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

4. If you use the black and white version, use these skin color crayons so students can color in the people to match the skin tones of themselves and classmates.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

5. Staple the books together and get ready to read!

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

6. On the interactive page, trace the student’s hand, encourage them to color it to match their skin color, and have them “name their brown.” You can use the name on the crayon, or they can come up with their own name (foods usually work best!).

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

7. Read the book together. You can follow up with partner reading, silent reading, group reading, or reading to a class pet/stuffed animal.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

8. Use the Discussion Starters to further the conversation about our 5 senses and how we can use our senses to learn more about kindness. 

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

9. Connect the reading with writing about our differences and it’s important that we’re different.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

Ready to get the We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader?

Download the We Are All Shades of Brown Emergent Reader here.

 Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.

Use this We are all Shades of Brown Emergent Reader to celebrate our differences and our different skin colors.


 

 

 

 

We need to go beyond teaching diversity and embracing multicultural studies...we need to celebrate our differences so we can value each other. And it starts with these 8 steps we can do with kids in our own homes and classes. #diversity #celebratediversity #celebratedifferences #teachdiversity #teachmulticulturalstudies #sel #selcurriculum #diversityeducation

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Welcome to Coffee and Carpool: Raising Kind Kids.

I’m Nicole and am a recovering elementary school teacher, a mom to three super busy kids, and the founder of The Raising Kind Kids Club where we share strategies and resources with busy parents and educators to intentionally focus on kindness, family connection, and bullying prevention.

We have hundreds of paid and free done-for-you resources to make teaching kindness and social emotional learning to kids easy, fun, and hands-on. Email me at nicole@coffeeandcarpool.com if there’s a resource that you wish you had.

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