It's the third week of school for me. I have a brand new class of EAKers- that's Early Admission Kindergarten. In my district we have a special program that is available for kiddos that aren't old enough to start regular kindergarten but that have birthdays after January- EAK. I'm the EAK teacher this year and January 4th was our first day together.
I'm loving this group of sweet kids. Most are 4 years old and are about to, or have just turned 5. We are busy learning the letters and sounds and just getting to know each other. With MLK as our first holiday, it's the perfect time to celebrate our individuality and to find our shared interests.
My little guys aren't writing yet (we are still practicing writing our names) so doing any kind of writing for MLK is out of the question. But I wanted the kids to have some concrete way to represent diversity so I used the fabulous book The Crayon Box that Talked.
If you haven't read this book before, it's an essential for your classroom library. It's totally relatable for a young learner. After reading this we had a great discussion on diversity. Then I had my littles complete a very easy worksheet to put on our writing wall.
They only had to write two words- their name being one and their favorite color the second. I have the color words on display on the wall so we looked at those and I modeled writing my favorite one. After that I talked about how I can like other colors as well and those I simply colored in using my box of crayons. Easy peasy.
FREEBIE!
Click on the picture below to grab the worksheet.
My kids were fine with copying their favorite color word from the wall. They were thrilled that they actually wrote a word. Then they were even more excited with they used the wall again to read each other's favorite crayon colors. Seeing their little faces so excited as they discovered that they were readers and writers is really what my job is all about. I always say that I have the best job in the whole world and I really mean it!
FREEBIE!
Click on the picture below to grab the poem.
To continue our discussion of diversity, I will read them another of my favorites. It is called The Colors of Us and it celebrates all different skin tones.
My plan is for the kids to complete the sentence "My skin is the color of ____." Then I will break out my skin colored crayons from Lakeshore and have them draw themselves using my
Portrait Templates.
Click on the picture below to get these.
So, that's how we are studying diversity in my class this year. I would love to hear what you are doing in yours. Thanks for stopping by!
